Remembrance of Things I Forgot, by Bob Smith. Terrace Books/University of Wisconsin Press, 272 pages, $26.95 hardcover.

Comic book dealer John Sherkson is a gay man with foiled dreams, liberal ideals and a faltering relationship. Instead of crafting stellar comics for new generations of fanboys, he sells the classics from a Manhattan storefront; the presidency of George W. Bush makes his skin crawl; and, worst of all, his physicist boyfriend of 15 years, Taylor Esgard, has morphed into a hard-core Republican. Breaking up is inevitable – until Taylor reveals that, as head of a top-secret government effort spanning decades, he has invented a time machine. Enter a malevolent-as-ever Dick Cheney, an unexpected trip back in time for John – where his 1986-era self flirts with both him and with a youthful, more progressive Taylor – and an effort by the three to change the course of history by heading off Bush’s presidency. Smith juggles the paradoxes of time travel with the agility of a veteran science fiction writer, but this isn’t just an SF novel. Part hilarious standup comedy routine, part tender gay romance, part caustic political satire and part emotional family drama, this multi-textured novel transcends the merely entertaining.

Who I Am, by M.L. Rice. Bold Strokes Books/Soliloquy, 194 pages, $14.95 paper.

After a childhood of shuttling from one school to another as a military brat, loner Devin Kelly and her widow mother land in Los Angeles for the young girl’s senior year. Beset by low self-esteem – she doesn’t even accept that she’s a stellar trumpet player – Devin is at first wary of the friendship offered by charismatic Melanie Parker, the most popular girl in the school, a fellow member of the school’s marching band and an environmental-activist whirlwind. Complicating their evolving friendship is the menacing presence of Melanie’s thuggish bully of a brother, Jason, who quickly pegs Devin as a dyke, even before she’s ready to come out to herself, much less to the world. Rice’s young adult debut covers the standard teen-angst tropes – troubled family life, school-hall harassment, sexual-orientation confusion, first-romance fumbling and, finally, the hurdling of emotional, physical and even geographic roadblocks to young love – with unforced and easygoing, albeit predictable, storytelling.

The Jack Bank: A Memoir of a South African Childhood, by Glen Retief. St. Martin’s Press, 282 pages, $24.99 hardcover.

For gay readers, the core of South African activist and author Retief’s illuminating memoir lies in its universal queer moments: early erotic stirrings, suppressed sexual longing, horrific corporal punishment at a boy’s boarding school, the dawning realization by a young white man of his attraction to black men and, ultimately, the author’s involvement in the end-of-apartheid social revolution that resulted in LGBT rights. But just as fascinating is Retief’s depiction of a society in turbulent evolution. As a youngster, he led a privileged minority within a minority life. His Roman Catholic family, progressive by any South African standard, lived in idyllic Kruger National Park amidst the dominant Afrikaners, then ruling the nation, and practiced a benign tolerance toward their black neighbors. Retief weaves his own sexual awakening through the tumultuous years leading to the overthrow of apartheid, marrying the personal and the political with lyrical potency. The title refers to cricket bats – "jacks" – wielded by bully boarding-school prefects, bloody whacks that left the author with searing psychological scars healed in this harrowing, redemptive account.

The Truth of Yesterday, by Josh Aterovis. P.D. Publishing, Inc., 368 pages, $22.99 paper.

Young Killian Kendall, the teenage PI who made his debut at 16 in Bleeding Hearts (followed by two more books), is now 18, and one busy youngster. He’s a college freshman, juggling classes while staking out a case of domestic infidelity for Novak Investigations, where he now works. He’s still a virgin, but deeply involved with boyfriend Micah, older by a few years and very patient. He’s reluctant to engage with the mystery of his metaphysical Gifts, despite pressure from an equally Gifted aunt. And, hovering over his life is the ghost of his high school friend Seth, materializing at odd times with cautionary but confusing advice. Enter mystery one: Micah’s former boyfriend, an escort agency callboy in Washington, D.C., has been murdered, and despite the strain it puts on their relationship, Micah – whose own past as a hustler unsettles Killian – asks the young sleuth to take the case. Enter mystery two: boyhood friend Jack is involved in something skeevy. Aterovis links the two storylines together with a bracing blend of appealing characters and intricate plotting.

Featured Excerpt

Junior smiled as his eyes butterflied around my arms and chest. It took me a second to figure out I was being cruised by myself, which was the most unsettling compliment I’d ever received. My smile widened slightly, wordlessly signaling that I appreciated the compliment while also reassuring him that I thought he was attractive as well. This was getting weird, but I was relieved that Junior liked me. (Of course, if he disliked me, what could I do? My only recourse would be to stop talking to myself.)

-from Remembrance of Things I Forgot, by Bob Smith.

Footnotes

Celebrity glamour collided with queer lit May 26 at the 23rd Annual Lambda Literary Awards in Manhattan. One Pioneer Award went to playwright Edward Albee, who caused a stir in 1990 at the LGBT literary conference OutWrite in San Francisco, when in his keynote address he declared that he was not a gay writer, merely a writer who was gay – a sentiment he repeated at the "Lammy" awards ceremony: "I’m a writer who happens to be gay." Fellow playwright Terrence McNally, who presented the award, confirmed Albee’s queerness: "He has avoided gay subject matter throughout his career...people wonder if he’s gay. Well, I’m here to tell you I picked him up at a party in 1960." The second Pioneer Award went to unquestionably queer Scottish mystery writer Val McDermid, who recalled that lesbians "were mythical, like mermaids," in her small town. Contributing to the night’s star power were a bevy of non-literary presenters, including actress Stefanie Powers, former politician Jim McGreevey, Mr. Gay USA (Eddie Rabon) and Miss New York (Claire Buffie). More literarily, the Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize went to writers Susan Stinson and Alex Sanchez; a Publisher Achievement Award went to the University of Wisconsin Press; David Pratt (Bob the Book) and Amber Dawn (Sub Rosa) won in the Gay Fiction and Lesbian Fiction debut novel categories; and Eileen Myles (Inferno: A Poet’s Novel) and Adam Haslett (Union Atlantic) won in the Gay Fiction and Lesbian Fiction categories. For winners in 22 other categories: lambdaliterary.org.