In Tongues

Longlisted for the 2024 Joyce Carol Oates Prize. Named one of the Best Books of 2024 by Glamour and one of them''s Best LGBTQ+ Books of 2024. RuPaul and Eric Cervini''s Allstora Book Club Pick for June.

âA novel that should become the touchstone of a whole generation.â â"Edmund White

Itâs 2001, and twenty-four-year-old Gordonâ"handsome, sensitive, and eager for directionâ"takes a bus from Minnesota to New York City because itâs the only place for a young gay man to go. As he begins to settle into the cityâs punishing rhythm, he gets a job walking rich Manhattanitesâ dogs. But it isnât until he stumbles into the West Village brownstone of two of his clients, the powerful gallery owners Philip and Nicola, that Gordon learns how much the world has hidden from himâ"and what heâs capable of doing in order to get it for himself.

A lush, heart-quickening novel about family and art, sex and class, and the terror of self-discovery, Thomas Grattanâs In Tongues chronicles Gordonâs perilous pursuit of belonging from the Midwest to New York and, later, to Europe and Mexico City. As he floats further into Philip and Nicolaâs exclusive universe, and as lines blur between employee, muse, lover, and mentor, Gordonâs charm, manipulations, and growing ambition begin to escape his own control, in turn threatening to unravel the lives, and lies, of those around him.

Anchored by winsome lyricism, glinting intellect, and a main character whose yearnings and mistakes come to feel like our own, In Tongues crackles with fierce longing and pointed emotion, further confirming Thomas Grattan as a rare chronicler of young adulthoodâs joys and devastations.