An Ebook Appears, with Pride

 

I'm thrilled that the ebook edition of The Last Vanishing Man is now available from the major ebook vendors: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and probably some others I don't know about.

For the announcement image we're using on social media, we added a rainbow in honor of Pride Month, one of the only times we're violating the austere palette of the book's design. But Pride's important right now, during a time of escaling attacks on LGBTQIA+ people and culture. The Last Vanishing Man is a queer book in just about every way — indeed, if any general genre accounts for it all, that genre is the Queer Weird (Queird?).

In the latest issue of Locus, Ian Mond offers a generous review of the collection and of my work generally. He notes that the book "depicts the melancholy of older gay men who were never able to fully express their affections" and "the loneliness and isolation of younger gay men in a post-AIDS world". Not easy stuff, of course, and not the rousing celebration of identity that Pride perhaps calls for, but I'm glad Mond notes the overall effect: "There is a genuine beauty in Cheney’s clear-eyed prose, which immerses you in his world, even if the subject matter is challenging." It's a heartening review because a lot of what I write could perhaps be seen as bleak for its own sake, but my goal is never to bum the reader out, but rather to seek whatever transcendence might be possible through confrontation with the darkness. To seek pride by heading toward the other side of shame and desperation.

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