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Author Archives: Gabriel François
Leonardo’s Early Years: Between Fiction and Biography
Florenzer by Phil Melanson (Liveright, 2025) is a historical novel about the youth of Leonardo da Vinci that explores his awakening to sexuality and his formative artistic years. It ends at the moment when Leonardo leaves Florence in 1482, leaving unfinished Adoration … Continue reading
Cabinet secret
Exceptional exhibition currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, running through April 5, 2026: Seeing Silence: The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck. This remarkable show offers a rare opportunity to discover one of Finland’s most compelling … Continue reading
Queerness in Dumas’ Fiction
Reading the latest issue of The Gay & Lesbian Review, I stumbled on an article arguing that The Count of Monte Cristo is threaded through with sapphic text and subtext in regard to the relationship between Eugénie Danglars and her … Continue reading
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Tagged Alexandre Dumas, La Dame de Monsoreau
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Notable Books of 2025
These two titles are also worth mentioning: The Hairdreser’s Son, Gerbrand Bakker, translated from the Dutch by David Colmer, Archipelago Books: tension and mystery. The Six Loves of James, Gareth Russel, Atria Books (first published in the UK as Queen … Continue reading
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Best Books of 2025 in The New York Times
This my take away: The Split, Lucas Schaefer, Simon & Schuster. The South, Tash Aw, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Baldwin, Nicholas Boggs, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Dark Renaissance, Stephen Greenblatt, W. W. Norton & Company. What is queer food, John Birdsall, … Continue reading
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Best Books of 2025 in the TLS
As every year at this time, the TLS asked its contributors what their favorite books of the past year were. Here are a few of the titles: Storyteller: The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, Leo Damrosch, Yale (William Boyd). The … Continue reading
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Random Links
Gilles Larrain, Photographer of 1970s Drag Culture, Dies at 86: He shot portraits of stars like John Lennon and Miles Davis. But he is best remembered for “Idols,” an intimate look at a vital New York underground. “Idols” marked something … Continue reading
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
I recently read Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the excellent Norton Critical Edition (2021), edited by Deborah Lutz, after reading the review of the new Stevenson biography (Storyteller, Leo Damrosch, Yale University Press, 2025) in The New … Continue reading
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Tagged Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
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Stan and Gus, Gilded Age and Secrets in New York City
In New York last weekend to see The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, the opera that opened the season at the Met. Despite the lukewarm review from The New York Times. Clay is homosexual, but it’s a secret he doesn’t accept, … Continue reading
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Tagged Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Stanford White
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Flaubert and Caillebotte
While reading Michel Winock’s biography of Flaubert (Gallimard, 2013), I came across these reflections: The trip Flaubert undertook in Brittany with his friend Du Camp proves that, when he wanted to free himself from his mother’s control, Gustave did so … Continue reading
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Tagged Gustate Flaubert, Gustave Caillebotte
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