What would I even write about? I had only recently discovered queer literature, but there were so many titles, and I had little money to buy them. Sure, Dickens, Chaucer and Austen were masters, but there was something incongruous between the books being taught to me as classics and the future I wanted for myself as a writer. All throughout high school and CEGEP, Quebec’s pre-college studies, I was confronted with books that didn’t resonate. I hate to admit it, but in my 20s I wasn’t that well-read for an aspiring novelist. John had helped me pick out the book, too, months before. So, I agreed to take us around the lake, and he offered to read aloud the first few pages of the book I had brought for the weekend. That year John was my counsellor, and I was looking for brownie points. It was the early 2000s and, at the time, my friends and I had this Labour Day weekend tradition: Queer Camp at a friend’s country house, complete with teams, tasks and competitions. The first time I heard an excerpt of Andrew Holleran’s novel Dancer from the Dance, I was in a canoe, paddling my friend John around a small lake in the Quebec countryside.
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