In September, the Light Changes: The Stories of Andrew Holleran

"Who cares what straight people think about us?" complains one of the characters in Andrew Holleran's first collection of short stories. "I don't care if they understand what I do in bed. I don't even understand what I do in bed, I could care less what they think about it." And just as many of the gay men in these 16 stories (only three of which have been previously published) refuse--or simply feel no need--to explain themselves, so too does Holleran explore his characters' lives with no effort to justify them. His witty, urbane characters who vacation in Key West or Fire Island are not the only types of gay men, of course, just those Holleran has chosen to write about. He writes on his own terms, and his characters--even when they are struggling to navigate through desire or loss--live on their own terms, not as stereotypes but as people with complex emotional lives.

Holleran's stories are crafted with such polished prose--slyly humorous and achingly poignant in turn--that one is immediately struck by their beauty. Every story seems to have its share of brilliant dialogue or descriptive passages, like the storyteller in "The Hamburger Man" who "didn't have the very best gossip--but ... belonged to that class of people who know one or two people who do." And in the final story, which gives the book its title, Holleran shows that he's equally adept at capturing the fleeting beauty of nature, in a setting "annealed by a delicate silver light, the most beautiful light of the whole year, a light that was both warm (if one lay in the sun, as he did now) and cool (if one stood in the shade)."