There’s a splendid review of Queer Victorian Families up on Review 19, and it singles out my chapter, “The Queer, Statistical Kinship of Tennyson and Melville,” for special praise:
[T]he most outstanding piece is Alec Magnet’s beautiful and melancholic reading of Tennyson’s In Memoriam alongside Melville’s Moby Dick. Both works, of course, have prompted queer theoretical readings as well as plenty of others. But in aiming to “demonstrate their affinity, their queer, archival, literary kinship, with each other while at the same time making themselves available to generations of queer readers” (191), Magnet’s reading stunningly exemplifies a return to what reading through a queer lens originally set out to do. Magnet recalls those moments in mainstream literature where the queer reader can quietly stumble upon and gain strength from deep connections that offer a “nourishing, reparative, queer kinship” (191).
Beautiful, stunning, and melancholic — that’s how I’ve always dreamt my writing would be described! I’m so grateful to Ardel Haefele-Thomas for these kind words. And to the book’s editors, Duc Dau and Shale Preston, for including my chapter and making it so much better.
Alec Magnet 