"Night after night, while his mother lay awake waiting nervously for his return, he fought with himself alone on the quiet streets, under the stars or the hiss of summer rain. A walker by night. The struggle went on wearingly, everlastingly, with small promise of victory on either side. The secrecy of his position maddened him, and yet it was a sweet madness. "I am the love that dare not speak its name — shame — name — shame — " the words were an insinuating counterpoint to his feet. The exaltation of his love  sent him running, sometimes, along the grass-grown roads at the edge of the village, his arms raised to the sky, his face thirsting for the stars.

Nothing so rich, so filling, so troubling, so goading, could be evil. The world might say what it chose. "He is my lover! He is my lover!" He longed to shout it from the roof-tops — "Behold, world, my lover!" He wept in the grass by the roadside for the blindness, the unfeeling stupidity, the unfairness of the world. He hated them all, the scoffers, the leaden-eyed. He throbbed with the music of rebellion and youth. He clutched his fingers in the cool dark sod and exhausted himself with weeping."

An incredibly important book in queer literature, I have seen this book (amongst others) being described as the first positively gay book. We follow  Kurt as he discovers and accepts his sexuality. As a child raised in a religious household, he has always been taught that it's a sin, but he learns how to love fully and truly.

I can only imagine how incredible it must have been to have come across this book as a gay man after it was published (in 1933) and being able to see gay love portrayed as the beautiful thing it is, rather than as the abomination it was taught as. I'm sue this would have helped many man along their own journey of accepting themselves.  I did find some parts of the book a little slow (although I'm neither religious nor a musician or in the arts) but I did love seeing Kurt's growth and seeing how his relationship and comfort with men grew over the course of the book. Definitely worth a read (or listen), especially if you are interested in the beginnings of LGBTQ+ literature