Books
‘Young Bloomsbury’ explores queer family of choice in 1920s England
Meet the generation ‘That Redefined Love, Freedom, and Self-Expression’
Safe spaces. Gender bending. Families of choice. Gender fluidity. Young queers being seen by their elders (hetero and queer). Throuples. Banned books. Conversion therapy.
At a party, a couple, two beautiful bisexual women, sing the latest show tunes and dance. One of them, wearing a purple dress, plays her saxophone.
We see you, Gen Z!
But you weren’t the first to embrace queerness in all its fab permutations.
A century ago in London at a time when being queer was illegal, a group of queer, gender-bending writers and artists — young members of the Bloomsbury group – broke through sexual and gender boundaries and formed families of choice.
In 1923, Henrietta Bingham and Mina Kirstein were the bisexual couple that danced and sang show tunes at the party. Bingham in her purple dress played the sax, author Nino Strachey writes in her illuminating, entertaining new book “Young Bloomsbury: The Generation That Redefined Love, Freedom, and Self-Expression in 1920s England.”
If you’ve had a queer friend rave about the gender-bending in “Orlando” by Virginia Woolf, or if you’ve seen the movie “Maurice” (of the novel with the same name), you’ve heard of the Bloomsbury group.
For Nino Strachey, the Bloomsbury group is up close and personal.
For starters, Nino Strachey is a descendent of Lytton Strachey, the queer, razor-sharp writer and founding member of the Bloomsbury group. She is the last member of the Strachey family to have grown up at Sutton Court in Somerset (U.K.), home of the Strachey family for more than 300 years.
Recently, Nino Strachey talked with the Blade about why she wrote “Young Bloomsbury,” the parallels between Young Bloomsbury in the 1920s and Gen Z today and the reaction to her book.
The formation of the Bloomsbury group began after Virginia and Vanessa Stephen’s father died in 1904. Virginia Stephens became Virginia Woolf after her marriage to Leonard Woolf. Vanessa Stephens became Vanessa Bell after her marriage to Clive Bell.
The Stephen sisters “escaped” to 46 Gordon Square in London, Strachey writes in “Young Bloomsbury.”
There, they could have a “life free from adult interference,” Strachey writes.
The Stephen sisters got to know their brothers’ — Thoby and Adrian — Cambridge University friends. These friends included John Maynard Keynes (who would become an acclaimed economist), Lytton Strachey, who would transform the art of biography, Duncan Grant who would revolutionize the art world and E.M. Forster, who would write “Maurice,” a novel with a queer love story that wouldn’t be published until after his death in 1970.
These queer artists and writers found “new ways to connect,” Strachey writes, “a commitment to honest communication between the sexes, to freedom in creativity, to openness in all sexual matters.”
The group was beginning to have critical support at the onset of World War I. Though the group’s (which Strachey calls “Old Bloomsbury”) activities broke down during the war, the cohort’s work took off after the war.
By the 1920s, the Old Bloomsbury artists and writers, then nearly in their 40s, had become successful. Virginia Woolf was photographed in Vogue. Lytton Strachey’s biography “Eminent Victorians,” a satirical takedown of Florence Nightingale and other renowned Victorians, was the talk of the town. Duncan Grant’s paintings were popular.
A group of queer young writers and artists, who Nino Strachey calls Young Bloomsbury, became lovers, friends, and creative collaborators with members of Old Bloomsbury.
Called the “Bright Young Things” at the time by the press and notables such as novelist Evelyn Waugh, members of Young Bloomsbury included: Julia Strachey, niece of Lytton Strachey and author of the novel “Cheerful Weather for the Wedding”; journalist and literary critic Raymond Mortimer; music critic and novelist Eddy Sackville-West; journalist and socialist politician John Strachey; sculptor Stephen “Tommy” Tomlin and artist and illustrator Stephen Tennant.
Members of Bloomsbury who were younger than Old Bloomsbury and older than the group’s younger members included the painter and decorative artist Dora Carrington; and the bookseller, publisher and writer David “Bunny” Garnett.
Nino Strachey didn’t write “Young Bloomsbury” as an academic project. Her reasons for writing the book were personal.
“I wrote [Young Bloomsbury],” Strachey said, “because my child identifies as gender fluid and queer.”
“It’s been a delight,” she added, “Something for us to do together.”
It’s been lovely for Nino Strachey to look at the queer history of the Strachey family and their friends and lovers, and to find queer role models going back to the 19th century.
Strachey became interested in writing “Young Bloomsbury” a few years ago. “I was working for the National Trust,” Strachey said, “I was researching the house called Knole – the home of Vita Sackville-West [poet, novelist, gardener and a lover of Virginia Woolf] and her cousin Eddy Sackville-West.”
In the midst of this research, one of Nino Strachey’s colleagues told her that she’d found some boxes of Strachey family papers.
Until then, Nino Strachey hadn’t known that, in the 1920s, her cousin John Strachey had lived with Eddy Sackville-West in London. From their letters, “I learned that they were incredibly open about their gender identity and sexuality,” Strachey said. “I wouldn’t have expected that 100 years ago! I don’t think anybody had looked into the boxes since the 1920s.”
“I thought: this is something I must write about,” Strachey said.
In the past, people have concentrated so much on who had sex with whom in Bloomsbury, that they’ve forgotten how important friendships were to the group, Strachey said. “They would be lovers with each other. Have quarrels,” she said, “but they cared for each other. They formed life-long friendships.”
They didn’t have the words for it a century ago but Bloomsbury became a family of choice.
At a time when a man could be arrested for carrying a powder puff in public or a queer person subjected to conversion therapy, Bloomsbury became a safe space for young queer people.
“Older Bloomsbury members took on a parental role for queer young artists and writers,” Strachey said. “They nurtured not only their careers but their personal life choices at a time when many of their parents weren’t supportive.”
Young Bloomsbury members would be pressured to undergo conversion therapy, Strachey said. “It was legal then. It was horrible,” she said, “involving painful injections.”
Conversion therapy wasn’t the only way in which queerness was repressed. Then as now, books with queer stories were banned.
Bloomsbury rallied around when lesbian writer Radclyffe Hall’s novel “The Well of Loneliness” was prosecuted for obscenity. Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster wrote letters of support for Hall. The book’s publication was blocked because it was judged to be obscene. (It was published in the U.K. in 1959.)
“You might have thought that ‘Orlando’ [the gender-bending novel by Virginia Woolf] would have been prosecuted for being obscene,” Strachey said, “but luckily that didn’t happen because it’s couched in this wonderful, historical, fanciful language.”
Strachey loved learning about how both Vita Sackville-West (with her masculine presentation) and Eddy Sackville-West (with his makeup and eye shadow) inspired Woolf’s writing of “Orlando.” “Virginia put these people into a single character who survives for 400 years,” Strachey said.
“Orlando,” which remains a “contemporary” classic novel, is having a moment today, Strachey said. “It’s on stage in London. For the first time, with a nonbinary actor playing the lead,” she added, “It’s getting rave reviews!”
People have misperceptions about Virginia Woolf, Strachey said. “Some interpretations see her, perhaps, as being quite harsh and judgmental,” Strachey said.
Yet, Woolf could be “absolutely supportive” and quite funny, Strachey said. “She and Lytton were really naughty,” she said, “they loved to tease people!”
“There’s a series of photographs where they’re together and smiling, and you can see how they’re riffing off each other,” Strachey said.
Virginia Woolf and other members of Bloomsbury listened to the romantic troubles of younger Bloomsbury members when their families wouldn’t. “Eddy Sackville-West read his diaries to Virginia Woolf,” Strachey said, “He talked to her about his love life.”
Old and Young Bloomsbury members loved Noel Coward and musicals. Younger members of Bloomsbury clued older members in on new technologies from radio broadcasting to flying lessons to movies to gossip columns. Young Bloomsbury “was tuned into the world of the stage – to film actresses like Mary Pickford,” Strachey said.
Strachey has been heartened by the feedback “Young Bloomsbury” has received. Not just from journalists and reviewers, but from people at festivals. “The warmest moments have been when people come up to me,” Strachey said, “to talk about chosen families and queer role models.”
“Cis, hetero couples ask: How can we support trans young people,” she added.
This is important to Strachey. We think society is so inclusive, but it’s not, she said.
“The statistics for LGBTQ+ youth regarding self-harm, bullying, prejudice remain really high,” Strachey said.
Anything one can do to raise support and awareness is a good thing, she added.
The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.
Books
This gay author sees dead people
‘Are You There Spirit? It’s Me, Travis’
By Travis Holp
c.2025, Spiegel and Grau
$28/240 pages
Your dad sent you a penny the other day, minted in his birth year.
They say pennies from heaven are a sign of some sort, and that makes sense: You’ve been thinking about him a lot lately. Some might scoff, but the idea that a lost loved one is trying to tell you he’s OK is comforting. So read the new book, “Are You There, Spirit? It’s Me, Travis” by Travis Holp, and keep your eyes open.
Ever since he was a young boy growing up just outside Dayton, Ohio, Travis Holp wanted to be a writer. He also wanted to say that he was gay but his conservative parents believed his gayness was some sort of phase. That, and bullying made him hide who he was.
He also had to hide his nascent ability to communicate with people who had died, through an entity he calls “Spirit.” Eventually, though it left him with psychological scars and a drinking problem he’s since overcome, Holp was finally able to talk about his gayness and reveal his otherworldly ability.
Getting some people to believe that he speaks to the dead is still a tall order. Spirit helps naysayers, as well as Holp himself.
Spirit, he says, isn’t a person or an essence; Spirit is love. Spirit is a conduit of healing and energy, speaking through Holp in symbolic messages, feelings, and through synchronistic events. For example, Holp says coincidences are not coincidental; they’re ways for loved ones to convey messages of healing and energy.
To tap into your own healing Spirit, Holp says to trust yourself when you think you’ve received a healing message. Ignore your ego, but listen to your inner voice. Remember that Spirit won’t work on any fixed timeline, and its only purpose is to exist.
And keep in mind that “anything is possible because you are an unlimited being.”
You’re going to want very much to like “Are You There, Spirit? It’s Me, Travis.” The cover photo of author Travis Holp will make you smile. Alas, what you’ll find in here is hard to read, not due to content but for lack of focus.
What’s inside this book is scattered and repetitious. Love, energy, healing, faith, and fear are words that are used often – so often, in fact, that many pages feel like they’ve been recycled, or like you’ve entered a time warp that moves you backward, page-wise. Yes, there are uplifting accounts of readings that Holp has done with clients here, and they’re exciting but there are too few of them. When you find them, you’ll love them. They may make you cry. They’re exactly what you need, if you grieve. Just not enough.
This isn’t a terrible book, but its audience might be narrow. It absolutely needs more stories, less sentiment; more tales, less transcendence and if that’s your aim, go elsewhere. But if your soul cries for comfort after loss, “Are You There, Spirit? It’s Me, Travis” might still make sense.
The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.
Books
‘Dogs of Venice’ looks at love lost and rediscovered
A solo holiday trip to Italy takes unexpected turn
‘The Dogs of Venice’
By Steven Crowley
c.2025, G.P. Putnam & Sons
$20/65 pages
One person.
Two, 12, 20, you can still feel alone in a crowded room if it’s a place you don’t want to be. People say, though, that that’s no way to do the holidays; you’re supposed to Make Merry, even when your heart’s not in it. You’re supposed to feel happy, no matter what – even when, as in “The Dogs of Venice” by Steven Rowley, the Christmas tinsel seems tarnished.
Right up until the plane door closed, Paul held hope that Darren would decide to come on the vacation they’d planned for and saved for, for months.
Alas, Darren was a no-show, which was not really a surprise. Three weeks before the departure, he’d announced that their marriage wasn’t working for him anymore, and that he wanted a divorce. Paul had said he was going on the vacation anyhow. Why waste a perfectly good flight, or an already-booked B&B? He was going to Venice.
Darren just rolled his eyes.
Was that a metaphor for their entire marriage? Darren had always accused Paul of wanting too much. He indicated now that he felt stifled. Still, Darren’s unhappiness hit Paul broadside and so there was Paul, alone in a romantic Italian city, fighting with an espresso machine in a loft owned by someone who looked like a frozen-food spokeswoman.
He couldn’t speak or understand Italian very well. He didn’t know his way around, and he got lost often. But he felt anchored by a dog.
The dog – he liked to call it his dog – was a random stray, like so many others wandering around Venice unleashed, but this dog’s confidence and insouciant manner inspired Paul. If a dog could be like that, well, why couldn’t he?
He knew he wasn’t unlovable but solo holidays stunk and he hated his situation. Maybe the dog had a lesson to teach him: could you live a wonderful life without someone to watch out for, pet, and care for you?
Pick up “The Dogs of Venice,” and you might think to yourself that it won’t take long to read. At under 100 pages, you’d be right – which just gives you time to turn around and read it again. Because you’ll want to.
In the same way that you poke your tongue at a sore tooth, author Steven Rowley makes you want to remember what it’s like to be the victim of a dead romance. You can do it here safely because you simply know that Paul is too nice for it to last too long. No spoilers, though, except to say that this novel is about love – gone, resurrected, misdirected – and it unfolds in exactly the way you hope it will. All in a neat evening’s worth of reading. Perfect.
One thing to note: the Christmas setting is incidental and could just as well be any season, which means that this book is timely, no matter when you want it. So grab “The Dogs of Venice,” enjoy it twice with your book group, with your love, or read it alone.
The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.
Santa will be very relieved.
You’ve taken most of the burden off him by making a list and checking it twice on his behalf. The gift-buying in your house is almost done – except for those few people who are just so darn hard to buy for. So what do you give to the person who has (almost) everything? You give them a good book, like maybe one of these.
Memoir and biography
The person who loves digging into a multi-level memoir will be happy unwrapping “Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama” by Alexis Okeowo (Henry Holt). It’s a memoir about growing up Black in what was once practically ground zero for the Confederacy. It’s about inequality, it busts stereotypes, and yet it still oozes love of place. You can’t go wrong if you wrap it up with “Queen Mother: Black Nationalism, Reparations, and the Untold Story of Audley Moore” by Ashley D. Farmer (Pantheon). It’s a chunky book with a memoir with meaning and plenty of thought.
For the giftee on your list who loves to laugh, wrap up “In My Remaining Years” by Jean Grae (Flatiron Books). It’s part memoir, part comedy, a look back at the late-last-century, part how-did-you-get-to-middle-age-already? and all fun. Wrap it up with “Here We Go: Lessons for Living Fearlessly from Two Traveling Nanas” by Eleanor Hamby and Dr. Sandra Hazellip with Elisa Petrini (Viking). It’s about the adventures of two 80-something best friends who seize life by the horns – something your giftee should do, too.
If there’ll be someone at your holiday table who’s finally coming home this year, wrap up “How I Found Myself in the Midwest” by Steve Grove (Simon & Schuster). It’s the story of a Silicon Valley worker who gives up his job and moves with his family to Minnesota, which was once home to him. That was around the time the pandemic hit, George Floyd was murdered, and life in general had been thrown into chaos. How does someone reconcile what was with what is now? Pair it with “Homestand: Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America” by Will Bardenwerper (Doubleday). It’s set in New York and but isn’t that small-town feel universal, no matter where it comes from?
Won’t the adventurer on your list be happy when they unwrap “I Live Underwater” by Max Gene Nohl (University of Wisconsin Press)? They will, when they realize that this book is by a former deep-sea diver, treasure hunter, and all-around daredevil who changed the way we look for things under water. Nohl died more than 60 years ago, but his never-before-published memoir is fresh and relevant and will be a fun read for the right person.
If celeb bios are your giftee’s thing, then look for “The Luckiest” by Kelly Cervantes (BenBella Books). It’s the Midwest-to-New-York-City story of an actress and her life, her marriage, and what she did when tragedy hit. Filled with grace, it’s a winner.
Your music lover won’t want to open any other gifts if you give “Only God Can Judge Me: The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur” by Jeff Pearlman (Mariner Books). It’s the story of the life, death, and everything in-between about this iconic performer, including the mythology that he left behind. Has it been three decades since Tupac died? It has, but your music lover never forgets. Wrap it up with “Point Blank (Quick Studies)” by Bob Dylan, text by Eddie Gorodetsky, Lucy Sante, and Jackie Hamilton (Simon & Schuster), a book of Dylan’s drawings and artwork. This is a very nice coffee-table size book that will be absolutely perfect for fans of the great singer and for folks who love art.
For the giftee who’s concerned with their fellow man, “The Lost and the Found: A True Story of Homelessness, Found Family and Second Chances” by Kevin Fagan (One Signal / Atria) may be the book to give. It’s a story of two “unhoused” people in San Francisco, one of the country’s wealthiest cities, and their struggles. There’s hope in this book, but also trouble and your giftee will love it.
For the person on your list who suffered loss this year, give “Pine Melody” by Stacey Meadows (Independently Published), a memoir of loss, grief, and healing while remembering the person gone.
LGBTQ fiction
For the mystery lover who wants something different, try “Crime Ink: Iconic,” edited by John Copenhaver and Salem West (Bywater Books), a collection of short stories inspired by “queer legends” and allies you know. Psychological thrillers, creepy crime, cozies, they’re here.
Novel lovers will want to curl up this winter with “Middle Spoon” by Alejandro Varela (Viking), a book about a man who appears to have it all, until his heart is broken and the fix for it is one he doesn’t quite understand and neither does anyone he loves.
LGBTQ studies – nonfiction
For the young man who’s struggling with issues of gender, “Before They Were Men” by Jacob Tobia (Harmony Books) might be a good gift this year. These essays on manhood in today’s world works to widen our conversations on the role politics and feminism play in understanding masculinity and how it’s time we open our minds.
If there’s someone on your gift list who had a tough growing-up (didn’t we all?), then wrap up “I’m Prancing as Fast as I Can” by Jon Kinnally (Permuted Press / Simon & Schuster). Kinnally was once an awkward kid but he grew up to be a writer for TV shows you’ll recognize. You can’t go wrong gifting a story like that. Better idea: wrap it up with “So Gay for You: Friendship, Found Family, & The Show That Started It All” by Leisha Hailey & Kate Moennig (St. Martin’s Press), a book about a little TV show that launched a BFF-ship.
Who doesn’t have a giftee who loves music? You sure do, so wrap up “The Secret Public: How Music Moved Queer Culture from the Margins to the Mainstream” by Jon Savage (Liveright). Nobody has to tell your giftee that queer folk left their mark on music, but they’ll love reading the stories in this book and knowing what they didn’t know.
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Out actor talks lead role in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’
This gay author sees dead people
Holiday week brings setbacks for Trump-Vance trans agenda
Your guide to D.C.’s queer New Year’s Eve parties
Your guide to D.C.’s queer New Year’s Eve parties
Holiday week brings setbacks for Trump-Vance trans agenda
Out actor talks lead role in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’
This gay author sees dead people
