Overview

Desire draws them together. What follows is never simple. A brand new collection of five gay-themed stories by John Stewart Wynne (Lambda Literary Award-nominated author of the novel The Red Shoes) about how desire re-shapes us. Ranging in locations from East Hampton to the Scottish Highlands to Provincetown and Tahiti, the stories vary in tone-tragic, comic, mystical-but share a psychological and emotional core and a commonality: that getting close changes everything. A Killing in East Hampton A story of class, resentment, and suspicion in a young, wealthy, gay married couple's new neighborhood-where a friendship across generations ends in betrayal. Narcissist A professor falls under the spell of a beautiful teen who, like the mythical Narcissus, only offers back his own reflection. We're Going Places A sharply drawn satire in which a retired soap star whisks away his young fiancé to Tahiti, but ambition, aging, and the need for visibility follow them around the world. Louise, Don't Go Two older women meet in a hotel in the Scottish Highlands and engage in a delicate act of longing and spectral memory, blurring the boundary between past and future. Blonds A young runaway lands in Provincetown and finds comfort in a relationship with a reclusive housepainter-until jealousy unravels everything they've built. These stories explore the shifting ground between love and loss, intimacy and illusion, in quiet storms of psychological tension. Dark, tender, ironic, and emotionally precise, they reveal just how far the heart will go-and what it leaves behind.

Full Product Details

9780931476143

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Reviews

Reviews of The Red Shoes, Lambda Literary Award nominee for Best Gay Fiction-available in a new edition from Tree Line Books in February 2026 ""I read this so fast I got blisters turning pages. The Red Shoes is so astonishingly good, original, beautiful, and amazing ... it's like a sumptuous meal with all flavors-salty, bitter, sweet, hot ... I love the Gothic feeling of terrible impending doom and the counterbalancing elements of light. I think it is a great work of art."" (Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner Award winner) ""Set in contemporary New York City, this is a beautiful dark queer re-envisioning of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. Wynne immediately engages the reader with finely detailed descriptions, nuanced characters, and an air of mystery that makes this 400+ page novel read like a novella ..."" (Lambda Literary Review) Reviews of The Other World: Stories, John Stewart Wynne's highly acclaimed debut story collection, first published by City Lights and now available in a new edition from Tree Line Books ""If there is a bright spot at all to this country's history of puritanical repression, it is in its tradition of 'outsider' art, art fueled by feelings of otherness that have been shared by certain artists [such as] Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers, and Truman Capote ... And now there's John Stewart Wynne, whose first collection of stories The Other World is among the most remarkable books I have ever read. ""Wynne's perspective is dark and terrifying and is made all the more so by his stark, vivid descriptions of contorted states of mind and, strangely, by his beautiful, at times lyrical, use of language. ""There are six stories in The Other World and at least three are masterpieces, as good as anything written recently. ""This is disturbing stuff, but lovely as well, haunting and powerful. John Stewart Wynne deserves a wider audience, for his is a unique vision. The Other World is one of the best books of the decade."" (The James White Review) ""This walk on the wild side of human nature can be startling, outrageous, frightening, and sometimes even funny, but Wynne's smooth, commanding style keeps the shocks in these stories from becoming mannered or numbing."" (Booklist) ""With so much tepid and sentimental fiction coming out, John Stewart Wynne's stories [in The Other World] are like a plunge in cold water. With a near-Brechtian intensity of focus and an infallible ear for dialog, Wynne casts a laser eye on the things we say, so different from the things we mean ... People on the edge, the margins of love ... A book to handle with asbestos gloves, but well worth the walk through fire."" (Paul Monette, National Book Award winner) ""The other world John Stewart Wynne describes in these stories is terrifying. And it is breathlessly, horribly recognizable as ours. This is an incredibly powerful book."" (Rebecca Brown, Lambda Literary Award winner) ""Wynne's prose is chiseled and precise. And in pages that tremble with beauty, Wynne gracefully reveals the darker side of human possibilities."" (Details)

Author Information

John Stewart Wynne is an American author of fiction, as well as a Grammy-nominated producer of audio books.

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