Shelf Life: Our Favorite Gay Panic Novels
Longing, pacing, self-medicating, etc.
The first time we heard the phrase “gay panic” was on the Celebrity Book Club podcast, as Steven Phillips-Horst and Lily Marotta discussed Robert Mapplethorpe in Patti Smith’s Just Kids. “He’s gay and not sleeping with men and he’s just pacing through their apartment,” Marotta says. “He’s got gay panic.” It was so accurate, like the light that unlocked a whole literary genre we had always gravitated towards but couldn’t name: one dominated by pacing, panicky narrators. What’s better than the utter longing and the bracing despair of a flailing gay person on their way to self-actualization? Below, our favorite novels of the genre.
The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis - Vintage
This semi-autobiographical novel follows Bret, a horny, closeted 17-year-old in 1981 Los Angeles. He spends his time driving his Jaguar down Mulholland, lusting over his best friend, avoiding sex with his girlfriend, having a clandestine affair with a surfer who ends up murdered by a serial killer, and self-medicating with quaaludes and cocaine. It’s as compulsively addicting as all the pills these high schoolers are popping.
Zipper Mouth by Laurie Weeks - Feminist Press
Obsession and panic are at the heart of this canonical lesbian novel, which follows a brilliant, jumpy heroin addict in ‘90s New York City. She spends her time writing anxious fan letters to Sylvia Plath and hanging out with Jane, a straight girl with whom she’s hopelessly in love.
Perfume & Pain by Anna Dorn - Simon & Schuster
In this propulsive lesbian spiral, Astrid Dahl is a menacing, mildly canceled Los Angeles author who’s as addicted to sex and love as she is to a devious pharmaceutical cocktail she calls the Patricia Highsmith — a blackout-inducing combination of Adderall, alcohol, and cigarettes. As she attempts to get her life together, Astrid finds a new set of distractions. There’s Penelope, her annoying, yet strangely sexy painter neighbor, as well as Ivy, a grad student researching ‘50s lesbian pulp novels. But is it enough to keep her off the path of total destruction? (It’s not – and thank God for that!)
All Fours by Miranda July - Riverhead Books
A queer woman plans to drive from Los Angeles to New York to celebrate her 45th birthday. She doesn’t make it far — setting up in Monrovia, California, a place that after you read this will, against all odds, drip with sex appeal. We can’t tell you the rest of this novel, which is one of the best books we’ve read in years (look out, New York Times Best Books of the 21st Century!) We wish we could have stayed even longer in Miranda July’s brain.
Dykette by Jenny Fran Davis - Henry Holt and Co.
Three queer couples in a cabin over Christmas break…what could go wrong? Dykette follows two young queer couples who stay at the upstate home of an elite lesbian couple over a weekend that moves from blood orange Negronis to sexed-up sauna performances to breakups and makeups and all the drama in between. You’ll fall in love with the messiness, wit, and charm of the narrator Sasha and her “high-femme camp antics.”
High Risk Homosexual by Edgar Gomez - Soft Skull Press
Okay, this isn’t a novel, but that actually makes it more panicky. Edgar Gomez’ memoir is a buoyant coming of age debut about growing up gay and Latino in Florida. Think: cockfighting rings, bath houses, and shaving drags queens’ backs.
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith - W.W. Norton
Known first and foremost as a scammer story, this Patricia Highsmith classic is also a criminally slept-on gay panic novel. Tom Ripley is a famously freaked out narrator (as anyone trying to pass off their identity would be!) — but Highsmith hints, again and again, that what Ripley is hiding isn’t just his murderous antics — posing the age old queer question: Do I want to be with you or do I want to be you?
The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith - W.W. Norton
Yes, Patricia Highsmith is an integral part of this list and we don’t care! Her 1952 novel has all the core tenets of gay panic: clandestine love affairs, suspicious husbands, a private investigator, and homosexuality used as a weapon in custody hearings.
People Collide by Isle McElroy - HarperVia
Gay panic meets Freaky Friday in this gender bending novel that follows a husband and wife after a body-switch that turns into a global search for each other — and an exploration of love, sexuality, and marriage.