- Northwestern University Press
James Magruder’s new story collection, Let Me See It, covers most of the key points of the coming-of-age of gay men in the 1970s and ’80s as experienced by first cousins Tom Amelio and Elliott Biddler. There are the charged childhood friendships, adolescent awkwardnesses, painful college crushes on straight or closeted boys, romances with older men, the difficulties of negotiating the attentions of straight women and the prejudices of family members, and, finally, the Plague.
Maybe, in the end, that’s not such a bad ratio. Consider the number of writing workshops in this country, the number of painfully self-conscious stories getting composed. Any bit of life that can get past the gatekeepers is worth savoring.
