![]() Just as the ‘coming out’ novel is associated automatically with A Boy’s Own Story by Edmund White, so is the ‘under-age romance’ indelibly linked with The Coming Storm. It is written with a clarity and a tenderness that must render this one of the pivotal texts of gay literature. However, Russell’s classically simple story of a 25-year-old teacher at a New York prep school having an affair with a 15-year-old student is remarkably free of both cliché and melodrama. I was a bit leery about reading this as I kept on thinking of a gay version of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Paul Russell went on to win the Ferro-Grumley Award for The Coming Storm in 2000 (and for a second time in 2012 for The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov, a much different novel that marks the true skill and depth of this remarkable writer). ![]() ![]() I am amazed at how topical and incendiary this novel remains 15 years after its publication in 1999. ![]()
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