classic adult books with brave characters

'An epic tale of perseverance and empowerment as well as a celebration of love in all its forms,' Tailor-Made author Yolanda Wallac, said of the novel. Epic in scope, the novel is, in part, a story of love between women -Celie’s love for her long-lost sister Nettie and for Shug Avery, the blues singer and former lover of Mister’s Celie falls for and with whom she eventually makes a home. Nominate your own favorites in the comments.Ī revelation when it was published in 1982, Alice Walker’s novel delves into the intersections of race, gender, family, and sexuality in Georgia circa 1930.įor all of the painful physical and sexual abuse and heartache Walker’s protagonist Celie endures at the hands of Mister, the man she’s forced to marry as an adolescent, and the violent, institutionalized racism she faces as a woman of color, the novel teems with hope and light. Their words have much to offer in lessons about our history, our shared experience of being otherized, and how to address the challenges of today.īelow, see The Advocate's ranking of the best LGBTQ+ novels ever written.

Spanning from the 19th century to the present day, these books demonstrate that, while much has changed for LGBTQ+ people, many struggles persist.

Our editors then added our own selections. To this end, The Advocate asked the fiction nominees of the 2019 Lambda Literary Awards to nominate the best LGBTQ+ novels of all time. Queer people face dangerous and deadly challenges - both in the United States and abroad - and it falls on writers to continue to bring these stories to light. “And in our culture at least those things are no longer the case.” With all due respect to Hollinghurst, it is still an urgent time to write (and read) about LGBTQ+ lives.

“There was an urgency, a novelty to the whole thing,” said the gay author, who won the Man Booker Prize for The Line of Beauty.

Recently, Alan Hollinghurst said the gay novel is dead.

Classic adult books with brave characters