EXQUISITE THINGS

Two gay teens who are eternally 17 yearn for a time without bigotry.

In 1895, Persian-born Shahriar struggles to find love as a gay boarding school student in London. In 1920 Boston, white pianist Oliver seeks connection with his older cousin’s gay Harvard classmates. In both times and places, they’re plagued by loneliness, betrayal by self-loathing boys within their own communities, and homophobia (the trial of Oscar Wilde, a moral panic and purge of gay students at Harvard). Their lives intersect, and through a wish, they’re made immortal, but it’s not until 1980 that Oliver and Shahriar reunite as lovers, when they discover a found family of queer Londoners. Adopted by Lily, a Jamaican-born Black trans seamstress and fashion queen, the boys finally find their queer elders. Yet 1980 is no more a gay utopia than 1895 or 1920 was, especially not for queer people of color living in Margaret Thatcher’s England. With the specter of HIV looming, dreams of societal acceptance feel far away. The narrative weaves back and forth among times and between Oliver’s and Shahriar’s perspectives. Their desires are poetic while the narrative, filled with a barrage of cruelties, lands with a grim determination. Lily and the London scene are delightful, but the boys’ misery-plagued romance, unfolding amid centuries of historical details, sometimes becomes a slog.

Dense with facts, speckled with hope; will appeal to patient, philosophical readers.