Books in the The Pride List - (Seagull Titles - CHUP) series

In 1950s France, Camille struggles to figure out who she is and where she fits in the world of her coastal working-class neighborhood. Her mother holds the family together, with the support of a group of women who talk over coffee and cigarettes each day. Her father, a war veteran, is largely silent except when his inner rage erupts in violence. Her sister, Ariane, provides comic relief, while her construction worker brother, Abel, is a lost soul who suffers from severe seizures. Camille herself can usually be found curled up with a book, observing everything. But an intellectual and sexual relationship with her dentist's wife opens a world of new possibilities to Camille. Where will this lead her? Suicide, murder, accidental death--all are possible in this unconventional narrative from Mireille Best. As a young adult, Camille is not always the most reliable narrator, but she charms with her intelligence, lack of pretention, and strong connection to her roots. Through Camille's eyes, we embark on a fundamental and universal quest to balance where we come from with who we need to become.

What does it take to succeed as a queer teenage Eastern European sex worker in the 1990s? Eleven inches and a ruthless attitude. Western Europe, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall: Two queer teens from Eastern Europe journey to Vienna, then Zurich, in search of a better life as sex workers. They couldn‿t be more different from each other. Milan, aka Dianka, a dreamy, passive naïf from Slovakia, drifts haplessly from one abusive sugar daddy to the next, whereas MichaÅ¿, a sanguine pleasure-seeker from Poland, quickly masters the selfishness and ruthlessness that allow him to succeed in the wild, capitalist West‿all the while taking advantage of the physical endowment for which he is dubbed “Eleven-Inch.â€? By turns impoverished and flush with their earnings, the two traverse a precarious new world of hustler bars, public toilets, and nights spent sleeping in train stations and parks or in the opulent homes of their wealthy clients. With campy wit and sensuous humor, MichaÅ¿ Witkowski explores in Eleven-Inch the transition from Soviet-style communism to neoliberal capitalism in Europe through the experiences of the most marginalized: destitute queers.Â