Every year, when June rolls around, it brings with it a unique medley of emotions. The month hosts a symbolic changing of the seasons, beginning with spring in full bloom and ending with the buzzing heat of summer. And while the shift from spring to summer is enough on its own to prompt all sorts of contemplation, musings about the fundamental changes within both nature and ourselves, the added element of Pride belonging to June offers even more reflective fodder for queer folks navigating this month.
Often, our initial associations with Pride month are the parties, the parades, the marches. Perhaps even a bit of cynicism toward the questionable corporate sponsorships and rainbow merchandise that sprout out of thin air on June first and disappear just as quickly when the clock strikes midnight on July first.
And while all of these associations are valid, they can sometimes overwhelm us with distractions, stifling our ability to properly explore and engage with the other, perhaps less visible but equally important, feelings that Pride engenders.
It’s here that I find reading offers a valuable companion to the standard activities that inundate our calendars and Instagram feeds every Pride. While I am certainly not endorsing bringing a book to a parade - although to each their own - I am suggesting that finding time this June to consciously engage with the aspects of Pride that are less aligned with the conventional fun of parties and marches can be just as meaningful, and possibly even more rewarding, in our path toward deepening our self understanding and ultimately acceptance of who we are.
If this at all resonates with you, then here are four books I often find myself revisiting every Pride, both personally and professionally in my practice as a gay therapist working with gay clients navigating contemporary life in the city.
1. The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World — Alan Downs
At its core, The Velvet Rage explores how growing up gay in a world that wasn’t built for you can quietly shape self-worth. Many men internalize early messages about being “different,” and later try to outrun that feeling through achievement, appearance, status, or perfectionism.
In a city like New York, where ambition and image are often front and center, this dynamic can become even more intense. While success may help to disguise or diminish internalized shame, it can seem like that internal voice never fully leaves, continuing to ask, “Am I enough?”
Velvet Rage helps compassionately connect the dots of how heteronormativity and the struggle for acceptance can impact a gay person’s identity development. For some, it can illuminate experiences they’ve felt but never fully understood, opening the door to building a life that’s driven by authenticity rather than validation.
2. How to Be Gay — David M. Halperin
The title, in all its tongue-in-cheek glory, says it all. Halperin, like all of us, is well aware that there is no such thing as a “how to” book for being gay. And yet, his book offers a thoughtful look at gay culture, identity, and belonging. As a literature and queer studies professor, Halperin unpacks some of the biggest, most impactful artifacts of gay culture. Exploring how and why films like Mommie Dearest or the great, white lights of Broadway resonate and connect with gay men in the very unique, and ultimately culture and community-defining way that they do.
How to be Gay helps unpack how identity is shaped not just by who we are, but by the communities and norms around us. It offers perspective and reassurance that while there is no one way to be gay, there can be profound comfort in discovering and celebrating likeness. In fact, it’s one of the best tools we have for building community and establishing the traditions we hold dear, which is, in many ways, what Pride is all about.
3. Less — Andrew Sean Greer
While not a self-help book, Less captures something deeply relatable and is also incredibly satirical. The novel follows its hero, Arthur Less, on a globe-trotting adventure that prompts him to reflect on love, loss, aging, and life.
What I find so powerful about this book is how it utilizes classic tenets of gay culture and identity – humor and wit – to portray genuine feelings and experiences. It's this collision of comedy and sincerity that makes the novel and its story feel unquestionably queer. It also helps remind us of the uniquely nonlinear features of queer life and identity. Arthur’s very erratic and spontaneous journey around the world is a helpful reminder to us all that there can be beauty and meaning in the unexpected. That often, as silly and cliche and eye-rolly as it sounds, it’s when we’re lost that we find ourselves.
There’s something about this message that I find particularly resonant during Pride month, when the whirlwind of events, parties, fundraisers, and protests can have a dizzying effect. If you, too, find yourself seeking an anchor to help steady the shaking ship of Pride month, then perhaps Arthur’s journey can offer you solace this June.
4. Dancer from the Dance — Andrew Holleran
Usually every spring, it’s not uncommon to see a stream of Dancer from the Dance paperbacks trickling through the city, their readers preparing for a feverish trip into 1970s gay New York that bears an uncanny resemblance to the present.
It’s this historical resonance, the striking collision between the then and now that occurs while reading the novel, that helps explain why this annual migration of readers flocking to Dancer from the Dance emerges. It’s not unlike the migration depicted in the novel, in which its characters journey from the sweltering hot streets of the urban jungle to the hedonistic Eden of Fire Island Pines.
Even decades after it was written, the emotional themes of fleeting connections and restless desire unveil a timeless quality of what it means to be gay that defies age or generation. It offers a striking reminder that, as much as society and attitudes toward sexuality have changed, there are still certain components of the gay experience that endure, and that we can come to learn and better understand through engaging with our past. I can’t think of a more fitting story for this Pride month.
Why These Four?
Together, these books are wonderful companions for Pride month, offering valuable maps to guide us through life. Not necessarily prescribing the answers but helping to support us through our own paths of self-discovery. Opening ourselves up to new ideas, new ways of looking at ourselves, our relationships, our stories, and our futures. Prompting us to ask more nuanced and honest questions about who we are and what we want.
If you find yourself cracking open any of these books this Pride, I hope you enjoy them. And if you find these stories, or even just the stirring whirlwind of Pride, lingering with you, I’d love to hear from you. Therapy, much like reading, can be a powerful way to make something as large and occasionally overwhelming as Pride feel personal.
And most of all, I wish you a happy Pride!
You can find all of these titles through my Bookshop affiliate link. Every purchase helps support my practice, specifically by helping us offer more sliding-scale options for our clients.
