Edinburgh
by Alexander Chee | 
The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon
by Tom Spanbauer | 
Winter Birds
by Jim Grimsley | 
Now Is the Hour
by Tom Spanbauer | 
Mysterious Skin
by Scott Heim | 
The Weekend
by Peter Cameron | 
Period
by Dennis Cooper | 
Forgetting Elena
by Edmund White | 
The City and the Pillar
by Gore Vidal | 
Tommy's Tale
by Alan Cumming |
Yanking Up the Yoyo
by Michael Carson | 
Equal Affections
by David Leavitt | 
The Spell
by Alan Hollinghurst | 
The Man of the House
by Stephen McCauley | 
Andrew's Brain
by E. L. Doctorow | 
Just Above My Head
by James Baldwin | 
The Secret Fruit of Peter Paddington
by Brian Francis | 
Gossip
by Christopher Bram | 
Exiles in America
by Christopher Bram | 
Hotel de Dream
by Edmund White |
James Whale, the elegant director of such classic horror films as"Frankenstein" and "The Bride of Frankenstein, " was found at his Los Angeles mansion in 1957, dead of unnatural causes. Christopher Bram, whose social insight and wit have earned him comparisons to Henry James and Gore Vidal, explores the mystery of Whale's last days in this evocative and suspenseful work of fiction. Home from the hospital after a minor stroke, Whale becomes convinced that his time is nearly over. Increasingly confused and disoriented, he is overwhelmed by images from the past: his working-class childhood in Britain, lavish Hollywood premieres in the 1930s attended with a nervous lover, meeting Garbo, parties with Elsa Manchester, Charles Laughton, and Elizabeth Taylor, nightmares from his own movies. Handsome ex-marine Clayton Boone, an angry loner who is Whale's gardener, becomes the focus of a fantastic plot Whale devises to provide his life with the dramatic ending it deserves. Bram juxtaposes the worlds of two very different men, James Whale and Clayton Boone, deftly shifting between the complex mind of an English exile full of experience and sardonic humor, and that of an American whose attitude toward Whale moves from disgust to fascination to a final shock of disbelief. Suggesting influences as diverse as Sunset Boulevard and the works of Christopher Isherwood, "Father of Frankenstein" is a rich yet cutting look at fame, mortality, and hidden desire. Often praised for his singular take on history, culture, and sex, Bram has surpassed himself with this ingenious new novel.