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The life of this scribe is a real page-turner

New novel about Thomas Mann brimming with entertaining history

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(Image courtesy of Scribner)

‘The Magician’
By Colm Toibin
c.2020, Scribner
$28/512 pages

If you told me that the most exciting book you’d read recently was a novel about the life of a writer, I’d think you were nuts. 

Especially if the author spent hours, daily, closeted in his study writing, was often remote from his children and, frequently, at least publicly, as stuffy as a pompous university professor. Yet, reading “The Magician,” a new novel by acclaimed gay writer Colm Toibin, has made me eat those words.

In “The Magician,” a fictional bio of the renowned 20th century novelist Thomas Mann, Toibin has done what few have been able to do: He’s turned the life of a scribe into a page-turner.

In my youth, I carried “The Magic Mountain,” Mann’s voluminous 1924 novel, into cafes. I never made it all the way through the novel’s saga of Hans Castorp’s stay in a sanitarium for patients seeking treatment for tuberculosis. 

Though different in style, the novel was like James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” You wanted to be seen with it, even if you didn’t get it.  

Much of Mann’s work from his retelling of the biblical story of Joseph and his brothers to Dr. Faustus, his reshaping of the Faust legend in the life of a fictional composer, seems not only fraught with symbolism – but too long.

Yet, “Buddenbrooks,” Mann’s autobiographical novel about reversal of fortune of a German merchant family, published when Mann was just 26, is an engrossing read.

When Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929, the Prize citation called “Buddenbrooks,” “one of the classic works of contemporary literature.”

“Death in Venice,” Mann’s 1912 novella has caused generations of queers to prick up their ears. Particularly, back in the day, when few of us were out in life or in fiction.

“Death in Venice” is the story of the writer Gustav Von Aschenbach who’s attracted to a beautiful boy named Tadzio. It’s not an out and proud tale. Aschenbach’s lust for the youth gets entangled with illness. Yet, homoeroticism permeates the novella.

Toibin’s take on Mann’s life is fictional. But, in writing “The Magician,” he spent years researching Mann’s journals and biographies of Mann.

On the surface, Mann who was born in Lubeck, Germany in 1875 and died in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1955, led a heteronormative, conventional life.

He and his wife Katia were happily married for decades. Katia, who was bright and charming, was one of the first women of her generation to study at a university. The couple had six children.

After writing in the morning, having lunch, taking a walk, eating dinner with his family – Mann would go to an opera or a concert.

If you’re queer, you know there’s often more than meets the eye. in “The Magician,” Toibin uses his fab writerly wiles to reveal what’s behind the curtain.

Like Aschenbach in “Death in Venice,” Mann, from his youth, was attracted to boys and men.

Though closeted in public, he wrote about his same-sex attractions in his diaries.

From the get-go, Thomas and Katia Mann appear to have reached a tacit understanding of Thomas’s sexuality.

When he first met Katia, Mann was attracted by her boyish qualities. Mann “imagined Katia naked, her white skin, her full lips, her small breasts, her strong legs,” Toibin writes.

Katia understood Mann’s sexuality. In some ways, it was helpful to her. It meant, Katia said, that she didn’t have to worry about Mann going after another woman.

On his part, Mann made a tacit commitment to Katia. “Thomas would do nothing to put their domestic happiness in jeopardy,” Toibin writes.

The Manns fled from Munich to Switzerland when the Nazis came to power. (Katia was Jewish.)

When they were in exile, Mann was terrified that the Nazis would find the revelations about his same-sex attractions in his diaries.

If the Nazis made his sexuality public, it would be known “who he was and what he dreams about,” Toibin writes. 

The Manns weather love affairs (some of his children were queer), suicides of family members and exile.

The book becomes as suspenseful as a Hitchcock thriller as they struggle to find a new home after the Nazis devastate their native country.

“The Magician” is brimming with entertaining soap opera, campy bons mots and riveting history.

Though it’s 500-plus pages, you won’t be able to put it down.

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Chronicling disastrous effects of ‘conversion therapy’

New book uncovers horror, unexpected humor of discredited practice

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(Book cover image courtesy of Jessica Kingsley Publishers)

‘Shame-Sex Attraction: Survivors’ Stories of Conversion Therapy’
By Lucas F. W. Wilson
c.2025, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
$21.95/190 pages

You’re a few months in, and it hasn’t gotten any easier.

You made your New Year’s resolutions with forethought, purpose, and determination but after all this time, you still struggle, ugh. You’ve backslid. You’ve cheated because change is hard. It’s sometimes impossible. And in the new book, “Shame-Sex Attraction” by Lucas F. W. Wilson, it can be exceptionally traumatic.

Progress does not come without problems.

While it’s true that the LGBTQ community has been adversely affected by the current administration, there are still things to be happy about when it comes to civil rights and acceptance. Still, says Wilson, one “particularly slow-moving aspect… has been the fight against what is widely known as conversion therapy.”

Such practices, he says, “have numerous damaging, death-dealing, and no doubt disastrous consequences.” The stories he’s collected in this volume reflect that, but they also mirror confidence and strength in the face of detrimental treatment.

Writer Gregory Elsasser-Chavez was told to breathe in something repellent every time he thought about other men. He says, in the end, he decided not to “pray away the gay.” Instead, he quips, he’d “sniff it away.”

D. Apple became her “own conversation therapist” by exhausting herself with service to others as therapy. Peter Nunn’s father took him on a surprise trip, but the surprise was a conversion facility; Nunn’s father said if it didn’t work, he’d “get rid of” his 15-year-old son. Chaim Levin was forced to humiliate himself as part of his therapy.

Lexie Bean struggled to make a therapist understand that they didn’t want to be a man because they were “both.” Jordan Sullivan writes of the years it takes “to re-integrate and become whole” after conversion therapy. Chris Csabs writes that he “tried everything to find the root of my problem” but “nothing so far had worked.”

Says Syre Klenke of a group conversion session, “My heart shattered over and over as people tried to console and encourage each other…. I wonder if each of them is okay and still with us today.”

Here’s a bit of advice for reading “Shame-Sex Attraction”: dip into the first chapter, maybe the second, then go back and read the foreword and introduction, and resume.

The reason: author Lucas F. W. Wilson’s intro is deep and steep, full of footnotes and statistics, and if you’re not prepared or you didn’t come for the education, it might scare you away. No, the subtitle of this book is likely why you’d pick the book up so because that’s what you really wanted, indulge before backtracking.

You won’t be sorry; the first stories are bracing and they’ll steel you for the rest, for the emotion and the tears, the horror and the unexpected humor.

Be aware that there are triggers all over this book, especially if you’ve been subjected to anything like conversion therapy yourself. Remember, though, that the survivors are just that: survivors, and their strength is what makes this book worthwhile. Even so, though “Shame-Sex Attraction” is an essential read, that doesn’t make it any easier.

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Books

How one gay Catholic helped change the world

‘A Prince of a Boy,’ falls short of author’s previous work

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(Book cover image via Amazon)

Brian McNaught, the pioneering gay activist and author of 1986’s “On Being Gay” and 1993’s “Gay Issues in the Workplace,” has written a personal account about his Catholic faith and homosexuality. It is a memoir without much substance.  

“A Prince of a Boy: How One Gay Catholic Helped Change the World” (Cascade Books) is a strong personal statement by McNaught. He helped change family relationships. He helped change attitudes about homosexuality. He helped change workplaces, but the world?

In January 2023, the Catholic News Service reported that Pope Francis announced that, “being homosexual is not a crime.” In December 2023, NPR reported that Pope Francis approved “Catholic blessings for same-sex couples, but not for marriage.” Francis died Monday at age 88. Although Catholics may not see homosexuality as a crime, they see sex outside of marriage as a sin. They see same-sex marriage as a sin.

In 2021, Gallup reported that membership in the Catholic Church had declined 20 percent since 2000. In 2025, the Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study found that nearly 40 percent of Americans identified as Protestant, while the same study found that only 19 percent identified as Catholic.

McNaught devotes much of his book to his life as a gay Catholic. It is challenging to read about his personal struggle. Some readers may find it interesting. Others might find it boring. Catholic readers may find it more compelling than Protestant readers.

As the above statistics prove, McNaught has much more work to do to change the Catholic Church’s views about homosexuality. We should be glad for his contribution to the debate within the Catholic Church. We should pray for full acceptance of gays in the Catholic Church.

“A Prince of a Boy” becomes more interesting when McNaught describes his work as an educator on LGBTQ issues. He has had an impact on workplace policies, academic programs, and public education, and his lectures, books, and other materials are widely used. 

Based on my experience in the federal government and volunteering with LGBTQ organizations from the Bay Area to Washington, D.C., I believe McNaught’s work as an educator has improved LGBTQ lives, careers, and families. During the Clinton administration, I gave many copies of “Gay Issues in the Workplace” to personnel directors. I felt their staff could benefit from reading it. I thought it would help the lives and careers of my federal LGBTQ colleagues.

McNaught’s “A Prince of a Boy” was released in December 2024. Anti-gay crusader Anita Bryant died the same month. Bryant campaigned against a gay rights law in Florida. She began a national campaign against gays.

When Bryant successfully reversed a gay rights ordinance in Dade County, Florida, McNaught wrote the important essay “Dear Anita, Late Night Thoughts of an Irish Catholic Homosexual.” The essay is not in “A Prince of a Boy”; however, McNaught mentions Bryant.

In his training programs, McNaught describes homosexuals as journeying from confusion to denial to acceptance to pride. “Anita Bryant and AIDS brought Gay people to identity pride very quickly,” McNaught writes. San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk (1930-1978) and other activists reached similar conclusions about Bryant’s vicious anti-gay campaign.

McNaught helped change the LGBTQ world and brought pride to many people’s lives. McNaught walks in pride, works in pride, and educates others in pride. 

“A Prince of a Boy” is a disappointing book. It provides small details about Brian McNaught’s large, proud life. A meaningful biography about this great gay leader is long overdue.

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‘Pronoun Trouble’ reminds us that punctuation matters

‘They’ has been a shape-shifter for more than 700 years

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(Book cover image courtesy of Avery)

‘Pronoun Trouble’
By John McWhorter
c.2025, Avery
$28/240 pages

Punctuation matters.

It’s tempting to skip a period at the end of a sentence Tempting to overuse exclamation points!!! very tempting to MeSs with capital letters. Dont use apostrophes. Ask a question and ignore the proper punctuation commas or question marks because seriously who cares. So guess what? Someone does, punctuation really matters, and as you’ll see in “Pronoun Trouble” by John McWhorter, so do other parts of our language.

Conversation is an odd thing. It’s spontaneous, it ebbs and flows, and it’s often inferred. Take, for instance, if you talk about him. Chances are, everyone in the conversation knows who him is. Or he. That guy there.

That’s the handy part about pronouns. Says McWhorter, pronouns “function as shorthand” for whomever we’re discussing or referring to. They’re “part of our hardwiring,” they’re found in all languages, and they’ve been around for centuries.

And, yes, pronouns are fluid.

For example, there’s the first-person pronoun, I as in me and there we go again. The singular I solely affects what comes afterward. You say “he-she IS,” and “they-you ARE” but I am. From “Black English,” I has also morphed into the perfectly acceptable Ima, shorthand for “I am going to.” Mind blown.

If you love Shakespeare, you may’ve noticed that he uses both thou and you in his plays. The former was once left to commoners and lower classes, while the latter was for people of high status or less formal situations. From you, we get y’all, yeet, ya, you-uns, and yinz. We also get “you guys,” which may have nothing to do with guys.

We and us are warmer in tone because of the inclusion implied. She is often casually used to imply cars, boats, and – warmly or not – gay men, in certain settings. It “lacks personhood,” and to use it in reference to a human is “barbarity.”

And yes, though it can sometimes be confusing to modern speakers, the singular word “they” has been a “shape-shifter” for more than 700 years.

Your high school English teacher would be proud of you, if you pick up “Pronoun Trouble.” Sadly, though, you might need her again to make sense of big parts of this book: What you’ll find here is a delightful romp through language, but it’s also very erudite.

Author John McWhorter invites readers along to conjugate verbs, and doing so will take you back to ancient literature, on a fascinating journey that’s perfect for word nerds and anyone who loves language. You’ll likely find a bit of controversy here or there on various entries, but you’ll also find humor and pop culture, an explanation for why zie never took off, and assurance that the whole flap over strictly-gendered pronouns is nothing but overblown protestation. Readers who have opinions will like that.

Still, if you just want the pronoun you want, a little between-the-lines looking is necessary here, so beware. “Pronoun Trouble” is perfect for linguists, writers, and those who love to play with words but for most readers, it’s a different kind of book, period.

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