Enter to win Homo Novus
Enter to win Homo Novus by Gerard Cabrera. To enter the contest, fill out the form below between Friday, May 19, and Friday, June 9.
Piety, compassion, lust, love… Feelings all the more potent when you are a Catholic priest hospitalized with an AIDS diagnosis, being comforted by the seminarian you sexually abused as an adolescent. It's Holy Week 1987. The priest is Fr. Linus Fitzgerald, the young seminarian is Orlando Rosario. Join them as they reflect on their desires and dreams, secrets and sins, hopes and faith, and the paths that brought them together.
Homo Novus illuminates with deep empathy and stark emotional honesty the journey these two men take separately and together - a journey that began with a violation of trust and leads them to places - sacred and profane - that they never imagined.
"Capturing the patriarchal seduction of religion, this novel is an essential contribution to our queer Latinx literary tradition." -Emanuel Xavier, Author of Christ Like, and Selected Poems of Emanuel Xavier
"Sex, grace, power, and commitment drive this powerful narrative to its shattering conclusion of personal transfigurations and fearful redemptions. In Homo Novus, Gerard Cabrera's lucid and startling prose pierces the heart, making us rethink our deeply held beliefs about faith, love, courage, and betrayal. The journeys that Orlando and Linus take-with one another, away from one another, and to new understandings - are specific to their lives, and always frighteningly relevant to ours. Homo Novus is a masterful, powerful work-the perfect balancing of the profane and sacred that strikes at the heart of what it is to be human."-Michael Bronski, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of A Queer History of the United States
"Gerard Cabrera weaves a compelling, and terribly human, story from the strands of sexuality, self-discovery, secrets, violations, hypocrisy, betrayal, and redemption. He paints vivid landscapes ranging from Boston to Puerto Rico, from gay clubs to the Catholic Church. In these days of fanaticism and fear, this tale could not be more relevant, an eloquent rejoinder to those who would dehumanize this or any community. As one character says: "Love is love." Yes." -Martín Espada Author of Floaters: Poems (2021 National Book Award)
"Gerard Cabrera's eloquent and challenging novel Homo Novus takes a hot issue and gives it a complex and nuanced exploration that will encourage even greater discussion."
-Charles Busch, Actor/Playwright, author of The Tale of the Allergist's Wife and The Divine Sister
"Cabrera's Homo Novus wrestles with the desire of forbidden love. As the AIDS crisis begins to surface, the characters in this novel find themselves entangled within the undistinguished extremities of a religious vocation, vacillating between secrets and their own identities. In lyrical and often heartbreaking prose, Cabrera weaves a story that illuminates the unanswered questions surrounding morality, faith, lust and love, and what it means to forgive in the face of loss."
-Mario Alberto Zambrano, Dancer, Choreographer, and Author of the Acclaimed Novel Lotería
"A potent, pensive and poignant novel in which gay priests delve into themselves as they navigate lust, love, theology, and the human condition. Filled with strong imagery, and dialogue as biting as a bitch-slap, follow along as their pasts destroy their present lives and threaten their futures, in a time where the specter of AIDS draws the last card. Cabrera creates sexy, complex characters who lure you into the inner recesses of their psyches and libidos so that you end up incriminated through your own voyeurism. But don't shut your eyes because you're in for a wild ride with these men of the cloth who disrobe way more than just their bodies." -Charles Rice González, author of Chulito
Gerard Cabrera's novel, Homo Novus, was published by Rattling Good Yarns Press.
His writing has appeared in literary journals such as the Acentos Review, JONATHAN, Kweli, Apricity, and Angel Rust. In 2012, he attended the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and in 2015 he was awarded a Bread Loaf Camargo Foundation residency in Cassis, France, where he finished Homo Novus.
Gerard earned his undergraduate degree from Brandeis University, his Masters Degree in Public Health from Hunter College/City University of New York, and his law degree from Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts.
Over the years, he has mopped floors, worked on an Old Spice cologne assembly line, been a Cumberland Farms convenience store clerk, a kosher dishwasher, a drag performer, an activist, a secretary, and a bank teller. He also has worked in non-profits, universities, and as an attorney representing indigent people in housing court, family court, and probate court. He has practiced health care and regulatory law, and is a currently a court attorney in the New York City Family Court.
Gerard was born and raised in the Puerto Rican community of Springfield, Massachusetts, which is the birthplace of Dr. Seuss, basketball, and the first American dictionary. For over thirty years, he has lived and worked in New York City.
