Queer Novels Feature Young Souls in Flight

Rashod Ollison’s Soul Serenade and Charlie Jane Anders’s All the Birds in the Sky both have child outcasts as protagonists. Both authors are queer journalists. And both novels, out January 26, tackle universal themes of loss and acceptance—but through radically different means.

Soul Serenade is Ollison’s coming-of-age memoir. It traces his poor upbringing in rural Arkansas in the early ’80s, steeped in collard greens and soul music. Chaka Kahn and Michael Jackson provide an escape for the boy called “faggot” on the playground, and Minnie Riperton coos as the closeted honor student fantasizes about his crush, bringing himself to his first orgasm. “I love what I felt,” Ollison writes. “But it scared me too.”

Where Soul Serenade is rooted in the Arkansas soil, All the Birds takes flight. Anders, a trans woman and editor of geek site io9, has written a smart sci-fi fantasy for young adults that transcends the demographic. The story follows middle school outcasts Patricia, who talks to animals, and Laurence, who talks to machines. They become archetypes for the dueling forces between nature and technology, but which one will save the world? Despite heavy themes and outrageous settings, Anders preserves the emotional vibrations of opposites who attract, by turns comical and painful, and always luminous.

Visit rashodollison.com and allthebirdsinthesky.tumblr.com for more info.