Author Event: “Disorderly Men” At SF’s Iconic Queer Bookstore

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Free and open to the public! On Wednesday, September 20 at 7pm the Castro District’s iconic queer bookstore Fabulosa Books welcomes award-winning writer, literary historian, and Fordham University professor Edward Cahill to celebrate the release of his debut novel, “Disorderly Men”. The book – named one of Queer Forty’s “Best Pride Reads for Summer 2023” – is a page-turner set in the gay subculture of pre-Stonewall, Mad Men-era New York City, and marks Fordham University Press’s first work of original fiction. He will be joined in conversation by San Francisco writer and journalist K.M. Soehnlein, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of Army of Lovers and The World of Normal Boys, among others. Books will be available for sale, and a signing will follow the program.

About Disorderly Men

One of Queer Forty’s Best Pride Reads for Summer 2023!

Three gay men in pre-Stonewall New York City find their fates thrown together in the police raid of a Village bar.

Roger Moorhouse is a Wall Street banker and Westchester family man with a preciously guarded secret. As the shouting begins and flashlights blaze in his face, the life he’s carefully curated over the years—a fancy new office overlooking lower Broadway, a house in Beechmont Woods, his wife and children—is about to come crashing down around him.

Columbia literature professor Julian Prince lives a comparatively uncloseted life when he finds his first committed relationship tested to its limits. How could he explain to Gus, a fearless young artist, that he couldn’t stay with him that weekend because the woman who was still technically Julian’s fiancée would be visiting? But when Gus is struck unconscious by a police baton, Julian comes out of hiding to protect him, even if exposure means losing everything.

For Danny Duffy, an Irish kid from the Bronx with a sassy mouth and a diverse group of friends, the raid is a galvanizing, Spartacus moment. Danny doesn’t have too much left to lose; his family has just disowned him. But once his name appears in the newspaper, he’ll be fired from his job at Sloan’s Supermarket, where he’s risen to assistant manager of produce, and begin a journey that veers between political enlightenment and violent revenge.

The three men find themselves in a police wagon together, their hidden lives threatened to be revealed to the world. Blackmail, a private investigator, Gus’s disappearance, and Danny’s quest for retribution propel Disorderly Men to its piercing conclusion, as each man meets the boundaries of his own fear, love, and shame. The stakes for each are different, but all of them confront a fundamental question: How much happiness is he allowed to have . . . and what share of it will he lay claim to?

About the Author

Edward Cahill is a Professor of English at Fordham University, where he’s taught since 2005. He earned a Ph.D. from Rutgers University, specializing in the literature of British America and the early US republic. He has published numerous articles in such journals as American Literature, Early American Literature, Early American Studies, and ELH. His monograph, Liberty of the Imagination: Aesthetic Theory, Literary Form, and Politics in the Early United States, was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2012. More recently, Cahill has been teaching modern and contemporary fiction and writing novels. Some of his favorite authors to teach are Jane Austen, Henry James, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Alan Hollinghurst, Jennifer Egan, Ben Lerner, Tommy Orange, Ocean Vuong, Patricia Lockwood, and Rachel Kushner. His debut novel, Disorderly Men, will be published by Empire State Editions for Fordham University Press in September 2023. It will be the press’s first original literary fiction release. Cahill lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

About the Interviewer

K. M. Soehnlein (he/him) is the author of four novels, including “Army of Lovers” (2023), set against the backdrop of ACT UP and the AIDS activist movement, and his Lambda Literary Award-winning debut, The World of Normal Boys. He is the recipient of the Henfield Prize in short fiction and a Rainin Filmmaking Grant for screenwriting. His journalism has appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Out Magazine, The Village Voice, and San Francisco Magazine, and his personal essays have appeared in numerous literary collections. Karl received an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and currently teaches at the University of San Francisco MFA in Writing Program. He previously served on the Board of Trustees of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. He lives in San Francisco with his husband.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.