Why did Maitreyabandhu love this book?
Someone bought me Missouri. I had it on my shelf for ages, not thinking so much of it (judging the book by its cover). As soon as I started reading it though I was transfixed.
It’s a pitch-perfect novella, beautifully written, heartbreaking, tender, funny, and tragic; a remarkable gay love story, easily on a par with Annie Proulx’s wonderful Brokeback Mountain. Like all major novels – and this is a very short one – I came to care deeply about the two lovers at the heart of Missouri.
Erotic (in the best sense), cinematic in its evocation of the American landscape, I’d highly recommend it to any and every reader, but if you’re a gay man (like myself) you’ll find it especially moving.
1 author picked Missouri as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
This earnest, violent, yet utterly transfixing gay love story is set in the nineteenth-century American Midwest. Douglas Fortescue is a successful poet who flees England for America following a scandal; Joshua Jenkins is a feral young outlaw who was taught how to shoot a man at age six. The two men meet when Joshua robs Douglas’ carriage and takes him hostage; soon, a remarkable secret is revealed, and these two very different men grow closer, even as Douglas’ brother tries to “save” him from his uncivilized surroundings.
First published in Germany, Missouri is available in English for the first time.