Romances With Older Queer Protagonists, Stories of Perseverance and Power

Two recent novels featuring protagonists in their 60s and 70s show the vital importance of telling stories of queer survival and queer histories.

Here lately I’ve become a little obsessed with queer romances that focus on older protagonists, and I particularly enjoyed two recent novels, Ryan Love’s Arthur and Teddy Are Coming Out and Matt Cain’s The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle.

The former focuses on a grandfather and grandson (the titular Arthur and Teddy) and their respective coming out journeys in the present, while the latter is told from the point of view of its title character, who has spent most of his life in the closet until, faced with mandatory retirement from being a postman, he decides to come out of the closet, change his life, and pursue George, the love of his life who he last saw when they were teenagers.

Given that both of these novels are romances, they obviously come with a happy ending, but there’s quite a long road for both Arthur and Albert.