A Member of the Family

Preston ( Hometowns ) collects 24 personal, intensely moving accounts of gays' family relationships in this splendid anthology. One is a reflection on the unsuspected depths of a man's blooming relationship with a much younger brother, In another, Michael Nava recalls his quiet, stern Yaqui Indian grandfather. PW contributing editor Bob Summer, Brandon Judell, Michael Bronksi and Clifford Chase are among those who write of important moments with parents, sisters, brothers, uncles, cousins and grandparents that defined both familial identities and the authors' own developing identities as homosexual adults. Distinguished by the excellence of the writing--direct, graceful, elegant, moving--this collection is, as Preston notes in the introduction, ``not about being a perfect child in a perfect family . . . It is about being human in our world.'' (Oct.)