Gay Man, Trans Character in Alice McDermott's Someone

Critics are rightly swooning for Alice McDermott's Someone [Kindle - only $5.99] with typical praise coming from the Los Angeles Times -- "This is the grand accomplishment of Someone, a deceptively simple book that is, in fact, extraordinarily artful, a novel that traces the arc of an unexceptional, almost anonymous life and, seemingly by accident though of course on purpose, turns a run-of-the-mill story into a poem." -- but what most critics aren't saying is that a gay man is very close to the core of the novel. In the same delicate, sly way McDermott presents the heroine's entire life in a handful of minor chords, many of the key notes of a closeted existence in the 40s and 50s and 60s are included at the edge of the story, including being sent to an asylum. If that sounds vague, it's to avoid spoilers. The character whose trans status is not revealed to the shocked spouse until their wedding night, upsetting the entire Irish Brooklyn neighborhood, is seen only briefly but alluded to several times to underscore people's surprises and life's mysteries.

Read it.