In James Sie’s debut novel, Still Life Las Vegas, the magical collides with the mundane memory, sexual awakening and familial ties all lead to a place where everything is illuminated, and nothing is real.Īuthor Kim van Alkemade’s debut novel Orphan #8(William Morrow) is a harrowing journey into the troubled life of an early twentieth century lesbian: Threading through this coming-of-age story are beautiful, heart-wrenching graphic illustration, which reveal the journey of Walter’s mother Emily: how she left everything to chase a vision of Liberace across the country and how Walter’s father Owen went searching for her amongst the gondolas of the Venetian Hotel. At the same time, clues behind his mother’s disappearance finally start to reveal themselves, and Walter is confronted with not only the truth about himself, but also that of his family history. With them he discovers a Las Vegas he never knew existed and, as feelings for Chrysto develop, a side of himself he never knew he had. He doesn’t remember what she looks like he’s never so much as seen a photograph but, still, he looks for her among the groups of tourists he runs into every day, allowing himself the dim hope that she might still be out there, somewhere.īut when Walter meets Chrysto and Acacia, a brother and sister working as living statues at the Venetian Hotel, his world cracks wide open. Now seventeen, living in the dregs of Las Vegas, taking care of his ailing father and marking time in a dead-end job along the Strip, Walter’s life so far has been defined by her absence. When Walter Stahl was five-years-old, his mother drove away in the family’s blue Volvo and never came back. Martin’s Press is releasing The Still Life Las Vegas, a lyrical bildungsroman set in contemporary Las Vegas.

New month, new books! A new month is upon us, and so are a slew of new and noteworthy LGBT books.

New in August: James Sie, David Levithan, Casey McKittrick, and Kim van Alkemade

Mounting Evidence by Karis Walsh