Synopses & Reviews
“Glave is a gifted stylist . . . blessed with ambition, his own voice and an impressive willingness to dissect how individuals actually think and behave.”—The New York Times Book Review
Thomas Glave, known for his stylistic brio, expands and deepens his lyrical experimentation in stories that focus—explicitly and allegorically—on the horrors of despotic dictatorships, terror, anti-gay violence, the weight of memory, secret fetishes, erotic longing, desire, and intimacy.Thomas Glave is the author of Whose Song? and Other Stories, the essay collection Words to Our Now: Imagination and Dissent (winner of a 2005 Lambda Literary Award), and is editor of the anthology Our Caribbean:A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles. He is the 2008-2009 Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Professor in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Review
"In May, Glave stood up at a Caribbean literary festival and bravely criticized antigay remarks made by the Jamaican prime minister. Now he delivers a story collection focusing on the redemption of desire amid violence and homophobia." -- The Advocate
Review
In “The Torturer's Wife,” Thomas Glave has reproduced Lady Macbeth’s descent into murder and madness. Set in a modern paradise controlled by terror, people disappear during midnight flights over the ocean, while a charismatic military leader parades his stunningly lovely wife through mansions and banquets. This is a story that, once read, will replay itself in your nightmares forever. --The Kenyon Review, Fall, 2008.
Review
"Few of the nine short stories in Glave's second collection are explicitly Queer. But his themes are universal: the trauma of haunting memories, the puzzle of erotic longing, the intersection of intimacy and desire, the gnawing disease of unacknowledged racism, the parallel horrors of war and anti-Gay violence. . . Glave's daringly experimental but eloquent prose style, often elliptical and interspersed with lines of poetry, is a challenge. But a deep, attentive reading will yield exciting literary rewards." - Richard Labonte, Seattle Gay News
Review
"Short story collections are as good as their authors, as is the case with these three books. Lambda Award-winning author Thomas Glave followed his first collection (Whose Song? and Other Stories) with an even better set in The Torturer’s Wife, a group of violent and disturbing but nonetheless compelling tales." - Jesse Monteagudo, AfterElton.com
Review
"Thomas Glave has emerged as a unique author within GLBT letters, and his latest collection of short stories, The Torturer's Wife, stands to solidify his reputation. Indeed, while many of the books marketed to a gay readership rely on facile themes, Glave bravely defies the usual commercial interests by dealing with difficult subjects clothed in experimental prose." Eduardo Febles, The Gay and Lesbian Review
Review
"Glave's tales of desire, love, and fear during times of trauma simply should not be ignored. . . . The stories in this book are not pleasant, but they are important nevertheless. I would love to see Middle America give this book a try." Martin Goffeney, The Kosmopolitan Online
Review
"Glave's prose is vibrant, and immediate. It carries the reader along as it delves deep into the grim places of the human mind. . . . Putting this book down, I felt I will go back at some point soon and reread, in order to more fully understand and appreciate this beautiful and intriguing look at post-postmodern war fiction." Alan Chin, The Examiner
Review
"In many ways the experience of the dreamers, their inscrutable relationship with the dream-text, is akin to the experience of the reader of this collection. Stories often take on the texture of dreamscapes: enigmatic, elusive, difficult to decode."
Ronald Cummings, The Caribbean Review of Books
Synopsis
Fiction. African American Studies. Gay and Lesbian Studies. "Glave is a gifted stylist . . . blessed with ambition, his own voice and an impressive willingness to dissect how individuals actually think and behave"--The New York Times Book Review. Thomas Glave, known for his stylistic brio, expands and deepens his lyrical experimentation in stories that focus--explicitly and allegorically--on the horrors of despotic dictatorships, terror, anti-gay violence, the weight of memory, secret fetishes, erotic longing, desire, and intimacy. Also available from SPD is Glave's story collection, WHOSE SONG? AND OTHER STORIES.
Synopsis
Nominated for the 2010 Stonewall Book Award, the oldest book award given for outstanding achievement in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Literature
A woman is haunted by the atrocities committed by her husband, and makes a heart-wrenching decision about atonement; secret fears and unspoken desires reveal the profound ambivalence at the heart of an interracial couple's relationship; a Jamaican man mourns his friend's death at the hands of anti-gay vigilantes; and two extraordinary young men escape the horrors of slavery when they leave their bodies behind on the Middle Passage.
Known for his courageous explorations into the heavily mined territories of race and sexuality, Thomas Glave offers a series of profound portraits of the traumas of war, the ravages of homophobia and racism, and the ultimate triumph of desire.
"The Torturer's Wife is one of the most interesting American books I have read . . . a literary text that incites the reader to become a conscious and seduced re-reader." --Juan Goytisolo, The Marx Family Saga
"Glave's disruption of form is a powerful metaphor for sexual, racial and geopolitical disjunctions. Glave is a gifted stylist . . . blessed with ambition, his own voice and an impressive willingness to dissect how individuals actually think and behave." --New York Times Book Review
"Thomas Glave walks the path of such greats in American literature as Richard Wright and James Baldwin . . ." --Gloria Naylor, The Women Of Brewster Place
"Glave is a brilliant writer of startingly fresh prose . . . his stories are intricate tapestries of life rendered through a triumphant act of the imagination." --Clarence Major, My amputations
Thomas Glave is an O. Henry award-winning author and was named a Village Voice Writer on the Verge in 2001. He is the author of Whose Song? and Other Stories, Words to Our Now: Imagination and Dissent (winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Nonfiction), and editor of Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles. He has taught at the State University of New York at Binghamton and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Synopsis
Profound portraits of the traumas of war, the ravages of homophobia, and the triumph of desire.
About the Author
THOMAS GLAVE is an O. Henry award-winning author and was named a Village Voice Writer on the Verge in 2001. He is the author of Whose Song? and Other Stories, Words to Our Now:Imagination and Dissent (winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Nonfiction), and editor of Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles. He is the 2008-2009 Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Professor in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.