Events › Queering Shakespeare: Allen Bratton & James Frankie Thomas

"Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere…”

Join debut authors Allen Bratton and James Frankie Thomas as they discuss their brilliant new novels Henry, Henry and Idlewild. The first is a brilliant recasting of the Henriad in which Hal Lancaster is a queer protagonist for a new era, while the latter is a darkly funny story of two adults looking back on their intense teenage friendship, in a queer, trans, and early-Internet twist on the Manhattan prep school novel.

Allen and James are bringing Shakespeare to modern audiences in very different ways. Come see for yourself why their books are being called “a crackling, blindingly funny, thrilling and poignant romp through queer youth” and “a darkly humorous examination of the weight of privilege packed with drugs, dicks, Catholicism, cigarettes, and, yes, love.”

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Allen Bratton was born in the United States. He holds an MA in English Language and Literature, having written a thesis on medieval English kingship. He is the winner of the 2021 Sewanee Review Fiction Contest and was longlisted for the 2021 Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award. Henry Henry is his debut novel.

James Frankie Thomas is a novelist, critic, teacher, and lifelong New Yorker. He attended the City College of New York and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. IDLEWILD is his first book.

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