Best gay novel 2021

A confession: I very nearly quit putting this list together. 

Throughout the year I keep a running list, adding new names whenever I learn about an upcoming queer book—from Tweets, publicist pitches, endless NetGalley scrolls—and I usually kickoff writing the blurbs for each book a rare months before the list is due. Let me also add that, because I am a novelist myself, someone who works very hard to insert words on the page in a good-enough organize for someone to respond to them, I experiment and read at least a little of each book featured. And here’s an incredible truth that’s both deeply satisfying and makes my job surprisingly difficult: there are more and more queer books published every year. There was a time when I could complete a list like this in an afternoon; I was lucky to find a dozen explicitly queer titles. Now there’s a adorable solid chance I lose a good number of them. 

In mid-December—at the half-way point, and a couple days after my birthday—I looked at the list, halfway done then, and thought, “There’s no way I can do this. There’s no way I can finish putting together this list in a way that does each book justice.” Partly it was the volume, yes, and partly it was the amb