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The Inside Reader: Sean Kennedy
Nov. 12th, 2009 04:06 pmShow me the books he loves and I shall know the man far better than through mortal friends - Silas Weir MitchellI'm very happy to have as my Inside Reader Sean Kennedy whose Tigers & Devils is one of the best gay romance of the last year. Sean Kennedy's list is a mix of classic, romance and young adult novels, some of them already in my wish list and some of them are my "don't miss" as well (see Maurice and Orlando).
1) Maurice by EM Forster. One of England’s most prominent novelists, the story that was closest to Forster’s heart was only published after his death. This book means so much to me because it was one of the first ‘gay’ books I ever read, sneaking it off my older sister’s shelf. It was also one of the first representations of a gay couple I discovered in film or literature that didn’t end in tragedy. Seriously, check out the excellent documentary The Celluloid Closet to discover just how often a gay, or gay-coded, character doesn’t survive the film they’re in. Imagine my relief where I read a story where the characters slipped away into the mist, presumably to find a place where they could live freely and happily. Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (December 17, 2005)
Publisher Link: http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=12811
ISBN-10: 0393310329
ISBN-13: 978-0393310320
Amazon: Maurice: A Novel
"The work of an exceptional artist working close to the peak of his powers." Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times. Set in the elegant Edwardian world of Cambridge undergraduate life, this story by a master novelist introduces us to Maurice Hall when he is fourteen. We follow him through public school and Cambridge, and on into his father's firm, Hill and Hall, Stock Brokers. In a highly structured society, Maurice is a conventional young man in almost every way, "stepping into the niche that England had prepared for him": except that his is homosexual. Written during 1913 and 1914, immediately after Howards End, and not published until 1971, Maurice was ahead of its time in its theme and in its affirmation that love between men can be happy. "Happiness," Forster wrote, "is its keynote. In Maurice I tried to create a character who was completely unlike myself or what I supposed myself to be: someone handsome, healthy, bodily attractive, mentally torpid, not a bad businessman and rather a snob. Into this mixture I dropped an ingredient that puzzles him, wakes him up, torments him and finally saves him."
( books from 2 to 8 )
About Sean Kennedy: Sean Kennedy lives in the second-most isolated city in the world, so it’s just as well he has his imagination for company when real-life friends are otherwise occupied. He has far too many ideas and wishes he had the power to feed them directly from his brain into the laptop so they won’t get lost in the ether.
Dash and Dingo by Catt Ford & Sean Kennedy Paperback: 310 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (September 28, 2009)
Publisher Link: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=55_113&products_id=1480&osCsid=n06f2lbln590fboc3lb4vu9fg5
ISBN: 1615810668
ISBN-13: 978-1615810666
Amazon: Dash and Dingo
Stodgy British archivist Henry Percival-Smythe slaves away in the dusty basement of Ealing College in 1934, the only bright spot in his life his obsession with a strange Australian mammal, the thylacine. It has been hunted to the edge of extinction, and Henry would love nothing more than to help the rare creature survive. Then a human whirlwind spins through his door. Jack "Dingo" Chambers is also on the hunt for the so-called "Tasmanian Tiger," although his reasons are far more altruistic. Banding together, Dingo and the newly nicknamed Dash travel halfway around the globe in their quest to save the thylacine from becoming a footnote in the pages of biological history. While they search high and low, traverse the wilds, and fight the deadliest of all creatures—man—Dash and Dingo will face danger and discover another fierce passion within themselves: a desire for each other.
1) Maurice by EM Forster. One of England’s most prominent novelists, the story that was closest to Forster’s heart was only published after his death. This book means so much to me because it was one of the first ‘gay’ books I ever read, sneaking it off my older sister’s shelf. It was also one of the first representations of a gay couple I discovered in film or literature that didn’t end in tragedy. Seriously, check out the excellent documentary The Celluloid Closet to discover just how often a gay, or gay-coded, character doesn’t survive the film they’re in. Imagine my relief where I read a story where the characters slipped away into the mist, presumably to find a place where they could live freely and happily. 
Dash and Dingo by Catt Ford & Sean Kennedy 