Closets Are For Clothes
By Rachel Cook
black dog books
History is such an important part of any culture, it has always irked me how little many GLBT people know about their own (collective) past. Admittedly, much of that historical past has been glossed over, swept under the carpet or simply hidden but now there’s no excuse.
Closets Are For Clothes is a concise, entertaining run-down of Australia’s queer history since the arrival of white settlers. While it is aimed at young people, the book contains a plethora of interesting information and fascinating personal accounts in an extremely accessible format.
Cook herself is an editor and journalist for GLBT publications and the book has been endorsed by some very prominent members of the community such as Graeme Willett, Michael Kirby, Anthony Venn-Brown and Julie McCrossin, who wisely writes in her blurb: ‘Remembering our history helps protect our future’.
An absolute must-read! If you’re having trouble finding it in bookstores (shame!) try www.bdb.com.au
Amy Henderson
Mute
By Raymond Luczak
A Midsummer Night’s Press
I’ll be honest: the opening poem of Mute – entitled How To Fall For A Deaf Man – is so achingly beautiful that it actually made me cry. That’s no easy feat, yet Luczak’s lines are so tender and insightful that they cut to the heart of the matter and invite you to read and re-read them, over and over.
What follows is poetry thick with imagery and silence. Sometimes the images work while at others they stumble and jar. Luczak makes up for this with a remarkable poignancy comprised of wise insights. His words transgress the hearing world, laying bear its prejudices (A deaf man is always a foreign country. / He remains forever a language to learn.)
The result is an unraveling of speech as sign. There is an undeniable sorrow here, an achingly haunted world that Luczak bravely guides the reader through, one filled with moments of blistering love (The Loom) and undeniable mystery. Perfect for lovers of language.
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
Why VS Why- Gay Marriage
By Bill Muehlenberg and Rodney Croome
Pantera Press
If there were ever two people I would never have imagined to co-author a book together it would be Rodney Croome and Bill Muehlenberg- Croome being one of Australia’s most well known gay human rights campaigners and Muehlenberg being the secretary of the Family Council of Victoria.
This is a very clever concept from Pantera Press, in which big issues are dissected and both sides presented in a fair and thorough way. The aim is to ‘foster debate informed discussion by equipping the public with all the key issues and answers’ and the format consists of each argument followed by a rebuttal from the opposing side.
While Croome’s argument follows the human rights, freedom and equality route, Muehlenberg argues that same-sex couples should be content with the 85 pieces of legislation that were changed in 2008 and that allowing same-sex marriage diminishes the true meaning of the word.
This smart and user-friendly little book is a fascinating (although sometimes frustrating) read. www.PanteraPress.com
Amy Henderson
Handmade Love
By Julie R. Enszer
A Midsummer Night’s Press
We fashion the world from our hands. We build cities. We touch skies. We take lovers. All of this done by hand. Even as we write, hands shape the words we chose, craft them and our realities into shape.
Julie R. Enszer – poet, writer and lesbian activist – knows the power of hands and what they create. Hers is a poetry of honest lines, one straightforward and unabashed, yet delicate, sensual and poignant (I believe that there are two kinds of love in this world: / inherited and handmade. Yes, we inherit love / but my people, my people make love by hand.).
Yet it’s where she confronts issues of queer identity head on that Enszer’s poetry erupts. Sex and love are laid explicitly bare, as is the passing of time, the losing of friends and the strengthening of love. Memory, above all else, softens the edges. The result is poetry tough and full of love.
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
Love You Two
By Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli
Random House Australia
Dr Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli is a senior lecturer in the School of Health and Social Development at Melbourne’s Deakin University and is passionate about working with young people. Her previous non-fiction books, Girl’s Talk and Boy’s Stuff compiled personal stories about issues young people face and Tapestry explored five generations of her family’s history in Australia and Italy.
In this her first novel, Pallotta-Chiarolli combines her passions and experience to create a funny, moving and incredibly real account of 16-year-old Pina discovering that her loved-up Italian family is not quite as ‘normal’ as she thought.
Touted as a teen novel, this book probably has a little too much sexual content and ‘adult themes’ for the younger end of that market but older teens (and even adults) will find this entertaining.
Love You Two has been nominated in the Bisexual Fiction category of the Lambdas- GLBTI literature’s most prestigious awards.
Amy Henderson
