Two gay friends correspond about their many facets of their lives in Brown’s historical novel.

It’s 1990, and Dr. Francis Martell has recently moved from London to San Diego to teach at the Institute of Shakespearean Textual Analysis. In letters to his best friend back home—Jeremy Groves, the musical director for the British National Opera—he describes his bemusement at Southern California’s suburban sprawl, its clement weather, and most importantly, its attractive men. One strong, young Cajun man, in particular, named Beauregard Proud’homme—himself newly arrived from New Orleans—has caught Francis’ attention. “Well, professor, you haven’t wasted any time,” Jeremy responds, before informing him of the goings-on in London: Against a backdrop of Thatcherism and the ongoing AIDS crisis, Jeremy’s interest has been piqued by his newest protégé, Jonathan Gordon, who’s written a semiautobiographical novel recounting his trajectory from young boy in the North of England to out gay man working in the arts. Francis initially claims that contemporary gay coming-of-age novels only deepen his cynicism, but eventually, the two friends read the novel, making jabs at its form but finding its content inevitably relevant to their own experiences as young—or perhaps even older—gay men. Brown’s clever structure allows him to explore such themes as Judaism and jealousy in the queer community through Jonathan’s more straightforward coming-of-age story as a Jewish gay man, while the epistolary framing provides an unusual but engrossing exercise in character and voice. Whether the main characters are discussing public sex, leather bars, or classical composers, Francis and Jeremy imbue each missive with increasingly pompous turns of phrase, but they reveal a tender connection beneath the witty barbs and pretension. A convoluted subplot, bubbling in the background, involves Beauregard and blackmail, and it eventually works to tie all the characters together in fittingly operatic fashion—but it’s never as thrilling as Francis’ lovable contempt: “Its literary merit will, of course, be zero,” he says of Jonathan’s story. “I eagerly await the first instalment.”

Snapshots of gay life from different eras and generations, brought to life by biting, timelessly funny narration.

Bisexual Eddie De-la-Pole details his involvement with the courts of Edward IV and Richard III and his embrace of Judaism in Brown’s historical novel.

The preface notes that the “following book” is a “curious apologia,” written in Middle English and found in a synagogue in Barcelona. The narrative takes the form of the memoir of Eddie De-la-Pole, who mentions that he and his “closest companion,” Rabbi Abraham di Mayora, are now “living, out our days and dreams” in Bruges and Toledo. Eddie shares highlights of his life story: In England in the year 1461, at age 16, he meets King Edward IV at the Battle of Towton. Eddie, a bisexual, is drawn to the charismatic king and soon, even more powerfully, to Edward’s new brother-in-law, Anthony Wydeville. When Eddie travels with Anthony to marry off Edward’s sister, Margaret (“the only woman I have ever actually wanted to marry,” Eddie confesses), to the Duke of Burgundy, the men are initiated into a secret society that leaves them “satiated and happily united as brothers, and loving friends.” Alas, the War of the Roses intrudes, with Anthony soon lost forever and Eddie, after backing King Richard III, fleeing to a new life with Abraham, the rabbi/court diplomat whom he initially disliked but comes to rely on. By novel’s end, Eddie, now past 70, is circumcised as part of his “adoption by the family of the children of Israel.” The author packs a lot of fun and flavor into this historical fiction, including Eddie’s take on Richard’s role in the “Princes in the Tower” mystery. Brown helpfully provides several family charts as references to the intertwining relationships. Some of the story’s threads remain tantalizingly elusive, such as the full import of Eddie’s ruby ring, and questions about just how sexual some friendships became. Overall, this book offers a wonderfully complex narrator’s perspective on a head-spinning time in history.

An intriguing, richly detailed, fictionalized “eyewitness account” of the War of the Roses era.