Colm Tóibín, Alan Hollinghurst, Adam Mars-Jones and more recall the high style and libidinous freedom of a writer who ‘was not a gateway to gay literature but a main destination’
| Zadie Smith |
2023
Other Books Highlights From This Year I
Throughout the year, Vulture maintained a “Best Books of the Year (So Far)” list. Many of those selections appear above in our top-ten. Below, the rest of the books that stood out to them this year, presented in order of release date.
Teju Cole’s visual medium is photography, and lately, his written medium is the essay. With Tremor, he returns to the novel after 12 years, threading his tendency toward analysis and explication with scenes from the life of the protagonist, Tunde, who, like Cole, is a Harvard professor. At the start of the book, he is separated — hopefully, not for good — from his wife, Sadako. He is also considering the ethics of the roles he inhabits: lecturer, workshop leader, photographer, traveler, and viewer. How can one make or even behold art without assuming a dominant position? Cole considers this question alongside close readings of pastel drawings made by “the most prolific serial killer in American history”; the painting of a lesser-known Flemish master, Landscape With Burning City; Ingmar Bergman’s film Winter Light; the garden Sadako carefully maintains; and Tunde’s own photographs capturing someone else’s “private property.” Fans of other essayistic novels, including J.M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello and Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy, will appreciate Cole’s vision. —Maddie Crum
| Michel de Montaigne |
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