*SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2025*

'Remarkable... entertaining... deft... moving... refreshing'
Daily Telegraph

'A richly rewarding account of a resonant cultural moment'
Guardian

'Textured literary portraits of the masculine mind and body'
Raymond Antrobus, author of The Perseverance

In 1960, James Baldwin decisively diagnosed the troubled state of American society as a 'failure of the masculine sensibility'.

Strange Relations explores this mid-century crisis through the lives and works of four bisexual writers: Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers, John Cheever, and James Baldwin.

In a mesmerising blend of biography and cultural criticism, Ralf Webb examines how these writers challenged the damaging restrictions of contemporary gender and sexuality, and how, through both their art and relationships, they sought a transformative new masculinity - one grounded in fluidity, love and intimacy.

'Webb's writing is of a quality rarely seen, and his book returns you to the world slightly changed, equipped with another angle of vision on the quiddity of man'
Diarmuid Hester, author of Nothing Ever Just Disappears

'Impeccably well researched and hugely enjoyable'
Nicole Flattery, author of Nothing Special

'Wise, hopeful, and exquisitely written'
Will Tosh, author of Straight Acting

"Remarkable . . . True poet-scholars, whose creative and critical concerns intimately connect, are rare indeed: Webb is slowly and carefully establishing an interesting niche for himself among rather distinguished company. He's a writer who can give expression to crisis and confusion, but who can also offer careful analysis and critique of the causes and consequences of our human pain . . . A thoroughly reasonable and entertaining book, with . . . convincing and moving portraits of the authors [and] clear, determined, detailed readings . . . The sheer confidence and energy of the assessments and pronouncements is refreshing" - Daily Telegraph

"A richly rewarding account of a resonant cultural moment" - Guardian

"Even-handed and sensitive" - Guardian

"Earnest and often charming . . . close readings, bringing together sensitively the authors' lives and works, are the most enjoyable and illuminating aspects of Strange Relations" - TLS