Love in a Dark Time: And Other Explorations of Gay Lives and Literature - Softcover

John Banville Irish Times Is it permissible even to speak, as so many do nowadays, of a "gay community"? Tóibín treats [this] and many other questions with confidence and authority, both of which attributes are only strengthened by the moderation of his tone and the depth of his compassion. He writes with rare tenderness of figures as disparate as Elizabeth Bishop and Francis Bacon, Thomas Mann and Roger Casement, Thom Gunn and Pedro Almodóvar.

Ruth Padel Financial Times Tóibín demonstrates wonderfully how a dedicated writer always thinks with other writers: their lives and sexuality, as well as their work. Tóibín can be engagingly mischievous and witty, but is deeply serious about books.

John Gardner Times Literary Supplement It is Colm Tóibín's great strength that he is able to attune himself to nuances, and to the ways in which people "invent" themselves.

Mark Levin Men's Journal Tóibín is a superb technician with a brave soul.

Robert Sullivan Vogue Tóibín writes with high-voltage restraint; his sentences are masterfully devoid of trickery...He is tuned in to the silent language of families, the messages that are unspoken and slip past the rest of the world, landing deep into the hearts of those who understand.

A collection of linked essays about homosexual literature considers its most influential writers of the past two centuries--including Oscar Wilde, Thomas Mann, James Baldwin, Elizabeth Bishop, Mark Doty, and Thom Gunn--and how many of them were forced to hide the truth about their private lives. Reprint. 12,500 first printing.