The Color of Summer, or the New Garden of Earthly Delights
A few open-door scenes, described but not lingered on.
Direct. Plain anatomical words, moderately crude dialogue.
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Blurb
Arenas's finest comic achievement is also the fulfillment of his life's work, the Pentagonia, a five-volume cycle of autobiographical novels he began writing in his early twenties. Although it is the penultimate installment in his "secret history of Cuba," it was, in fact, the last book Arenas wrote before his death in 1990. A tale of survival by wits and wit, this is ultimately a powerful and passionate story about the triumph of the human spirit over the forces of political and sexual repression.--From publisher description.
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My Dear F***ing Prince
Another queer story where politics and public power force men to hide their love, but this one is playful romance with a guaranteed happy ending.
Old Rosa
Same author's Cuba under Castro, queer persecution and prison camps, but stripped of the comic sprawl into something short, bleak and brutal.
Us
Keeps the theme of men whose love must stay secret under outside pressure, though the tone is warm and hopeful rather than satirical.
Him
Shares the pull of desire between men navigating a hostile world, but trades political satire for a spicier, comforting friends-to-lovers arc.
Carry On
Also a queer m/m story with wit and magic, though it's gentle YA romance with a hopeful ending rather than political savagery.
Before Night Falls
The memoir behind the fiction: same defiant queer voice and Cuban repression, told straight and unsparing instead of through satire.