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Author Archives: Gabriel François
Somerset Maugham and his Bronzino Boy
Two men played a major role in Somerset Maugham’s life: Gerald Haxton until his death in 1944, and then Alan Searle. In her biography of Somerset Maugham (The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham, Random House, 2010), whose publication William Boyd … Continue reading
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Queer Lives : Walt Odets, 1947-2026
From The New York Times: “Walt Odets, a psychologist whose work with gay men in the Bay Area at the height of the AIDS epidemic led him to write a book on a nearly taboo topic, the survivor’s guilt and depression … Continue reading
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Alan Turing’s Lost Autofiction: The Short Story Behind His Conviction
In December 1951, Alan Turing had just completed his groundbreaking work on morphogenesis, which would be published the following year. Deciding he deserved a reward, he picked up a young man on the streets of Manchester and brought him home. … Continue reading
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Queer Lives : Jason Collins, 1978-2026
The New York Times, in an obituary published recently, Jason Collins, First Active N.B.A. Player to Come Out as Gay, Dies at 47, writes: His achievements on the court were eclipsed by an essay he wrote in Sports Illustrated in 2013 in … Continue reading
Leonardo’s Early Years: Between Fiction and Biography
Florenzer by Phil Melanson (Liveright, 2025) is a historical novel about the youth of Leonardo da Vinci that explores his awakening to sexuality and his formative artistic years. It ends at the moment when Leonardo leaves Florence in 1482, leaving unfinished Adoration … Continue reading
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Tagged Charles Nicholl, Leonoardo da Vinci, Phil Melanson
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Cabinet secret
Exceptional exhibition currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, running through April 5, 2026: Seeing Silence: The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck. This remarkable show offers a rare opportunity to discover one of Finland’s most compelling … Continue reading
Queerness in Dumas’ Fiction
Reading the latest issue of The Gay & Lesbian Review, I stumbled on an article arguing that The Count of Monte Cristo is threaded through with sapphic text and subtext in regard to the relationship between Eugénie Danglars and her … Continue reading
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Tagged Alexandre Dumas, La Dame de Monsoreau
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Notable Books of 2025
These two titles are also worth mentioning: The Hairdreser’s Son, Gerbrand Bakker, translated from the Dutch by David Colmer, Archipelago Books: tension and mystery. The Six Loves of James, Gareth Russel, Atria Books (first published in the UK as Queen … Continue reading
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Best Books of 2025 in The New York Times
This my take away: The Split, Lucas Schaefer, Simon & Schuster. The South, Tash Aw, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Baldwin, Nicholas Boggs, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Dark Renaissance, Stephen Greenblatt, W. W. Norton & Company. What is queer food, John Birdsall, … Continue reading
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Best Books of 2025 in the TLS
As every year at this time, the TLS asked its contributors what their favorite books of the past year were. Here are a few of the titles: Storyteller: The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, Leo Damrosch, Yale (William Boyd). The … Continue reading
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