Books
A campus novel filled with the complex realities of our time
‘The Late Americans’ explores racism, sexism, capitalism, classism
‘The Late Americans’
By Brandon Taylor
c.2023, Riverbed
$28/320 pages
You likely wouldn’t want to hang out with cranky characters who obsess about money, bemoan the art they make and live in a place where the winter is brutal and even the elm trees are diseased.
Yet, in “The Late Americans,” acclaimed Black, queer author Brandon Taylor, makes you care about a group of often unlikable, isolated, unhappy people. These characters smoke too much, cheat on their lovers and are so freaking hard on themselves, their friends and their art.
“The Late Americans” is set in Iowa. Most of the characters are graduate students at the University of Iowa along with some “townies” (people who aren’t students and live in the town). Most of the grad students are poets, fiction writers, dancers, and musicians working toward master’s degrees. Others are studying finance or math. The “townies” work on farms, factories, and stores.
“The Late Americans” is a campus novel. But don’t be fooled. You won’t find students canoodling, savoring the bright blue sky, engaging in congenial dorm bull sessions or writing poems about blue herons.
Taylor, whose first novel “Real Life,” was shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize, has given us a campus novel filled with the complex realities of our time: racism, sexism, 21st century capitalism and classism. Many of its characters have experienced the impact of the 2008 recession. Donald Trump is referenced.
It’s usually ill-advised to believe that fiction is closely linked to the lives of authors. Narrators can be unreliable and writers create imaginary worlds. “The Late Americans” isn’t auto fiction. But its setting seems to be modeled on the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where Taylor got an M.F.A. degree. This doesn’t make “The Late Americans” an autobiography or detract from Taylor’s work. It adds authenticity to the bleak, but, captivating universe Taylor has imagined.
While writing “The Late Americans,” Taylor told The Guardian he was inspired by Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Anton Chekhov and other 19th century writers. Taylor said he was “deeply reading” 19th century novels with their “broad casts of characters from all kinds of classes,” the paper reported.
“The Late Americans” works well as a novel but is structured like a group of linked short stories. Each chapter is focused on a different character. But the characters intersect throughout the novel. Most of them know each other to some extent. They’re lovers, co-workers, friends, and classmates.
Taylor has said that writing short stories is his sweet spot. His second book “Filthy Animals” is a superb collection of linked short stories.
It’s hard to pull off a novel that wants to be linked short stories but Brandon nails it in “The Late Americans.”
The novel opens with a chapter devoted to Seamus, a white working class poet who works in a hospice kitchen to pay for his graduate work. He’s ashamed of being gay, has furtive sex and deplores what he thinks of as the veneration of victimhood along with the ridiculousness of elitist poets and artists. “Miserable despite the praise,” Taylor writes of the poets in a poetry seminar, “when praise seemed so much the point of the poems they wrote.”
“Curiouser and curiouser, thought Seamus,” Taylor writes, “that a person, presented with what they wanted most, could seem so miserable about it.”
You’d need a seating chart worthy of a White House state dinner to follow all of the goings-on of these characters. But don’t let that worry you. As you read, you’ll find yourself going along with the flow.
There’s Frydor who’s Black and works in a meatpacking plant. His vegetarian boyfriend Timo, who’s from a Black middle-class background, endorses the death penalty. Gordon, a rich musician, is coupled with Ivan. Ivan, to Gordon’s embarrassment, makes sex tapes to support himself.
“Money is like an animal,” thinks Fatima, a Black woman who works as a barista so she can study dance, “changeful and anxious, ready to flee or bite.”
Despite barriers of race, class and economic hardship, the characters in “The Late Americans” bond in friendship and their love of art, and find glimmers of hope for their future.
You can’t ask for more from a novel.
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‘La Lucci’
By Susan Lucci with Laura Morton
c.2026, Blackstone Publishing
$29.99/196 pages
They’re among the world’s greatest love stories.
You know them well: Marc Antony and Cleopatra. Abelard and Heloise. Phoebe and Langley. Cliff and Nina. Jesse and Angie, Opal and Palmer, Palmer and Daisy, Tad and Dixie. Now read “La Lucci” by Susan Lucci, with Laura Morton, and you might also think of Susan and Helmut.
When she was a very small girl, Susan Lucci loved to perform. Also when she was young, she learned that words have power. She vowed to use them for good for the rest of her life.
Her parents, she says, were supportive and her family, loving. Because of her Italian heritage, she was “ethnic looking” but Lucci’s mother was careful to point out dark-haired beauties on TV and elsewhere, giving Lucci a foundation of confidence.
That’s just one of the things for which Lucci says she’s grateful. In fact, she says, “Prayers of gratitude are how I begin and end each day.”
She is particularly grateful for becoming a mother to her two adult children, and to the doctors who saved her son’s life when he was a newborn.
Lucci writes about gratitude for her long career. She was a keystone character on TV’s “All My Children,” and she learned a lot from older actors on the show, and from Agnes Nixon, the creator of it. She says she still keeps in touch with many of her former costars.
She is thankful for her mother’s caretakers, who stepped in when dementia struck. Grateful for more doctors, who did heart-saving work when Lucci had a clogged artery. Grateful for friends, opportunities, life, grandchildren, and a career that continues.
And she’s grateful for the love she shared with her husband, Helmut Huber, who died nearly four years ago. Grateful for the chance to grieve, to heal, and to continue.
And yet, she says of her husband: “He was never timid, but I know he was afraid at the end, and that kills me down to my soul.”
“It’s been 15 years since Erica Kane and I parted ways,” says author Susan Lucci (with Laura Morton), and she says that people still approach her to confirm or deny rumors of the show’s resurrection. There’s still no answer to that here (sorry, fans), but what you’ll find inside “La Lucci” is still exceptionally generous.
If this book were just filled with stories, you’d like it just fine. If it was only about Lucci’s faith and her gratitude – words that happen to appear very frequently here – you’d still like reading it. But Lucci tells her stories of family, children and “All My Children,” while also offering help to couples who’ve endured miscarriage, women who’ve had heart problems, and widow(ers) who are spinning and need the kindness of someone who’s lived loss, too.
These are the other things you’ll find in “La Lucci,” in a voice you’ll hear in your head, if you spent your lunch hours glued to the TV back in the day. It’s a comfortable, fun read for fans. It’s a story you’ll love.
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Books
Risking it all for love during World War II
New book follows story of Black, gay expat in Paris
‘The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram’
By Ethelene Whitmire
c.2026, Viking
$30/308 pages
You couldn’t escape it.
When you fell in love, that was it: you were there for good. Leaving your amour’s side was unthinkable, turning away was impossible. You’d do anything for that person you loved – even, as in the new biography, “The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram” by Ethelene Whitmire, you’d escape toward danger.
On Aug. 28, 1938, Reed Peggram boarded a ship from Hoboken, N.J., hoping to “become a proper gentleman” and fulfill his dreams. A prolific writer and Harvard scholar of comparative literature, he’d recently been awarded the Rosenwald Fellowship, which put him in the company of literary stars like Du Bois, Hurston, and Hughes.
Both Peggram’s mother and grandmother were then domestic workers, and they had big expectations for him. Reed himself was eager to study abroad, for professional and personal reasons; he was “determined to become a French professor and an accomplished linguist” and “He also hoped to find love.”
What better place to do it than in Paris?
Outgoing and confident, Peggram made friends easily and had no trouble moving “through the world of his white male peers.” Where he faltered was in his lack of funds. He relied on the kindness of his many friends – one of whom introduced Peggram to a “man who would become so pivotal in his life,” a Danish man named Arne.
Peggram and Arne had a lot in common, and they began to enmesh their lives and dreams of living in the United States. But there were complications: homosexuality was largely forbidden, World War II was in its early stages, and it quickly became apparent that it was dangerous to stay in Europe.
And yet, Peggram loved Arne. He refused to leave without him and so, while most visiting Black Americans fled the war in Europe, “Reed was trying to stay.”
There’s so much more to the story inside “The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram,” so much to know about Reed himself. Problem is, it’s a long haul to get to the good stuff.
In her introduction, author Ethelene Whitmire explains how she came to this tale and yes, it needs telling but probably not with the staggering number of inconsequential details here. Peggram moved homes a lot, and many people were involved in keeping him in Europe. That alone can be overwhelming; add the fact that costs and other monetary issues are mentioned in what seems like nearly every page, and you may wonder if you’ll ever find the reason for the book’s subtitle.
It’s there, nearly halfway through the book, which is when the tale takes a tender, urgent turn — albeit one with determination, rashness, and a dash of faux nonchalance. Also, if you’re expecting an unhappily-ever-after because, after all, it’s a World War II tale, don’t assume anything.
Reading this book will take a certain amount of patience, so skip it if you don’t have that fortitude. If you’re OK with minuscule details and want a heart-pounder, though, “The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram” might be a good escape.
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Books
Laverne Cox, Liza Minnelli among authors with new books
A tome for every taste this reading season
Spring is a great time to think about vacations, spring break, lunch on the patio, or an afternoon in the park. You’ll want to bring one (or all!) of these great new books.
So let’s start here: What are you up for? How about a great new novel?
If you’re a mystery fan, you’ll want to make reservations to visit “Disaster Gay Detective Agency” by Lev AC Rosen (Poisoned Pen Press, June 2). It’s a whodunit featuring a group of gay roommates, one of whom is a swoony romantic. Add a mysterious man who disappears and a murder, of course, and you’ve got the novel you need for the beach.
Don’t discount young adult books, if you want something light to read this spring. “What Happened to Those Girls” by Carlyn Greenwald (Sourcebooks Fire, June 30) is a thriller about mean girls and a camping trip that goes terribly, bloodily wrong. Meant for teens ages 14 and up, young adult books are breezier and lighter fare for the busy grown-up reader.
If you loved “Boyfriend Material” and “Husband Material,” you’ll be eager for the next installment from author Alexis Hall. “Father Material” (Sourcebooks Casablanca, June 2) takes Luc and Oliver to the next step. First was dating. Then was marriage. Is it time for the sound of pitter-patter on the kitchen floor?
Maybe something even lighter? Then how about a book of essays – like “The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay” bycomedian and writer Eliot Glazer (Gallery Books, Aug. 11). It’s a book of essays on being gay today, the irritations, the joys, and fitting in. Be aware that these essays may contain a bit of spice – but isn’t that what you want for your reading pleasure anyhow, hmmm?
But okay, let’s say you want something with a little more heft to it. How about a biography?
Look for “Transcendant” by Laverne Cox (Gallery Books, June 9), or “Kids, Wait Till You Hear This” by Liza Minnelli (Grand Central Publishing, March 10), and “Every Inch a Lady” by Audrey Smaltz with Alina Mitchell (Amistad, July 14). Keep your eyes open for “Without Prejudice: My Life as a Gay Judge” by Harvey Brownstone (ECW Press, May 26) or “The Double Dutch Fuss” by Phill Branch (Amistad, June 2).
Then again, maybe you want some history, or something different.
So here: look for “Queer Saints: A Radical Guide to Magic, Miracles, and Modern Intercession” by Antonio Pagliarulo (Weiser, June 1) for a little bit of faith-based gay. Music lovers will want “Mighty Real: A History of LGBTQ Music, 1969-2000” by Barry Walters (Viking, May 12). Activists will want “In the Arms of Mountains: A Memoir of Land, Love, and Queer Resistance in Red America” byformer Idaho state Sen. Cole Nicole LeFavour (Beacon Press, May 26).
And if these books aren’t enough, then be sure to check with your favorite bookseller or librarian. They’ll have exactly what you’re in the mood to read. They’ll find what you need for that patio, beach towel, or easy chair.
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