Books by Brian Bouldrey

Modern travelers on foot follow wisdom along the Ulster Way. Storytellers, said Walter Benjamin, are descended from one of two tribes: the mariners or the peasants. We revel in the stories of the sailors, with their lure of exotic places and the treasures a mariner brings home. We hearken to the stories of the peasants for a glimmer of the past, best revealed to natives and landed people. Brian Bouldrey, professional vagabond, and his very organized friend Garth, two unlikely mariners, hit dry land with backpacks and point their hiking boots down the Ulster Way. Along the more than 600 miles of Northern Irish mountains, moors, and monuments, they pursue a quest. Among the causeways and caves and publicans' cups, they seek faraway places revealed by the wisdom that only the peasant can offer.

The writing collected here, culled from mainstream and alternative publications released in 1997, ranges from historical fiction to erotica, from high comedy to suspense, from the experimental to the documentary.

Following the success of last year's debut volume, this Best American Gay Fiction collection broadens the range of contributors, styles, and genres. Here is outstanding new work by such well-known writers as Andrew Holleran, Dale Peck, Michael Nava, and David Wojnarowicz alongside fresh talents who capture the full spectrum of gay life today -- African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans. The impressive writing presented here -- all drawn from works published in 1996 -- reflects this diversity as well, and ranges from coming-of-age narratives to reflections on growing older, from edgy 'zine fiction to elegant tales wrought with lapidary precision.Unified only by their excellence, these twenty-one selections are resounding proof of yet another banner year for gay fiction.