It is disheartening and difficult to accept that Pride Day festival organizers are now focused on security measures instead of embracing and celebrating diversity and continuing to fight for freedom and equality.
It is even more disheartening to accept that many of our fellow citizens, in the wake of the terrible tragedy at Orlando, are now more apprehensive and fearful about simply being who they are. This is simply unacceptable, particularly in a free, democratic country such as Canada.
Middlesex (2002) by Jeffrey Eugenides is a grand, utterly original novel that effortlessly transcends the stereotypes of gender and questions what it is that makes us who we are. The epic tale of how Calliope Stephanides is transformed to Cal spans three generations and two continents, winding from the small Greek village of Smyrna to the gritty mean streets of Detroit.
Cal, a hermaphrodite, sets out to discover himself by tracing the story of his family back to his grandparents. The explanation provides us with an exhilarating view of the twentieth century and takes us back in time to 1922 when the Turks sacked Smyrna and Cal’s grandparents fled for their lives, through Detroit of the 1920s and 1930s and Cal’s own story, woven into the fabric of his parents’ upward social trajectory.
The Price of Salt (1952) by Patricia Highsmith, a brilliantly crafted story about romantic obsession, may be one of the most important novels of the twentieth century, even if it is still largely unrecognized despite being made into a major motion picture released last year.
The novel, published in 1952 and billed as “the novel of love that society forbids,” soon became a cult classic.
It is based on a true story plucked from the author’s own life and tells the compelling drama of Therese Belivet, a stage designer trapped in a department store day job until one day her routine is irrevocably shattered by the appearance of Carol Aird, a customer who comes in to buy her daughter a Christmas toy.
Therese is strongly drawn to the alluring suburban housewife, trapped in a marriage as suffocating as Therese’s job. The two fall in love and set out across the U.S. to face society’s strictures and disapproval.
Brokeback Mountain (1997) by Annie Proulx is one of the finest stories the author has written.
It is a haunting tale about Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, two young cowboys who share a small cabin while working as herders and camp tenders during a summer spent on a range far above the tree line. The two tumble into a relationship that at first glance appears solely sexual but soon reveals itself to be something more.
Both men marry and raise families and over the course of many years and frequent separations they discover their relationship is the single most important part of their lives. And they will do anything to maintain it, despite the hardships they face and ultimately the violence, they face.
These three titles, as well as the feature films Carol (2016) and Brokeback Mountain (2006), are available at your Okanagan Regional Library, www.orl.bc.ca.
– Peter Critchley is a reference librarian at the Vernon branch of the ORL.
