What happens when no one is watching-or when you think no one is?
In this razor-sharp, tenderly comic collection, James Magruder charts the evolving landscape of queer identity with heartbreaking honesty and wicked charm. The first half, Origin Stories, follows a group of closeted young men fumbling toward self-knowledge at Cornell University in the late '70s and early '80s-when disco was dying, Reagan was rising, and love still had to hide in the shadows.
Fast forward forty years to Parting Shots, where Roger Hauf, a tenured professor of dramatic literature and full-time observer of human folly, offers up the hard-won wisdom of a man who's seen it all-and admits he still doesn't have it figured out. Roger knows his students tune him out, but maybe you'll listen when he tells you: everyone should chase love across an ocean at least once, the right dance belt changes everything, and-spoiler alert-high school never really ends.
Smart, sexy, and unafraid to look longing in the eye, No One Is Looking at You is a glorious reminder that while we're all just trying to make it through the scene, the performance is always personal.
Praise for No One is Looking at You
"This is James Magruder's finest work-warm, funny, thoughtful, brash. These linked tales deal over and over again with the twin themes of expressing and accepting love. His is a world of interlocking figures-mother, siblings, lovers (both male and female), best friends, and enemies-in which no one is a winner or a loser, but each a part of the flawed fabric of the human. Magruder, who has produced wonderful theater, fascinating novels, and an exciting history of the Yale Repertory Theater, perhaps has found his métier in the short story. These stories are beautifully crafted, utterly delightful, and heart-wrenching. No One Is Looking at You is a book that everyone should read." -David Bergman, Author of Plain Sight
"Sometimes you're lucky to come across a collection that resembles nothing so much as a party. Maybe you know some of the other guests, or maybe every story is a stranger, but either way, you stay up way too late, your consciousness expands, there are tasty snacks and delicious personal confidences, you get to know some fabulous characters, and you might even fall in love. No One Is Looking at You is funny, wistful, and the kind of party I hated to leave." -Kelly Link, Author of Book of Love
"The assured stories in James Magruder's stunning new collection No One is Looking at You dig deep: into what it means to be human, into what it means to love and to lose, to discover oneself while also trying to connect, however awkwardly, with others. Magruder turns an unsentimental eye on just how messy, painful, but ultimately beautiful those human connections-made or missed-can be. What does it mean to be rejected? What does it mean to find one's soulmate and then be invited to navigate the (inevitable) pain of losing that someone? These stories ring with truth about how it feels to be young, and then...less young. They remind us that we humans are social beings, and how, ultimately, our tendency to need-and love-another, is nothing short of profound." -Janice Deal, author of The Blue Door and Strange Attractors: the Ephrem Stories
