Description
The Majestic Leo Marble
by R.J. Lee
ISBN: 978-1-956440-93-5 paperback $22.95
ISBN: 978-1-956440-94-2 ebook $9.99
268 pp.
August 20, 2024
Leo Marble quickens in the womb during a Broadway show, but his life is lived in the Deep South in conservative Mississippi and laid-back New Orleans. He eventually emerges from the closet to become a journalist and advocate for gay rights and visibility. Along the way, he experiences 
heartache on an international scale, but keeps his indomitable spirit alive with show tune concerts at his spinet, eventually falling in love with a dedicated meteorologist with higher math skills.
2024 International Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys
Book Club Reading Nation Bonus Book of the Month for September
Praise for The Majestic Leo Marble, the new novel by R.J. Lee:
A poignant and tender coming-of-age novel, R. J. Lee’s, The Majestic Leo Marble, follows its endearing protagonist from the womb through young adulthood. Set to the musical score of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel, Lee’s pitch perfect aria recounts early gay rights activism and the AIDS crisis through the compelling voice of the charming Leo Marble.
—Robert Gwaltney, award winning author of The Cicada Tree, and Georgia Author of the Year
Leo Marble, a journalist for the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, advocates for a gay coalition in the Crescent City. The novel discusses the political fight with Anita Bryant and a boycott of Florida orange juice, and it feels like an important book for the current era, especially in its relation to the teaching scandals surrounding gay people who have been unfairly accused of grooming children… The way that teachers are leveraged in the anti-gay crusade in this story offers a striking comparison to the current taboos against drag queens and trans people.
—Mike Hilbig, author of Judgment Day & Other White Lies
A gay man searches for love in post-Stonewall New Orleans in Lee’s brooding romance.
In 1946, Leo Marble, still ensconced in his mother Louisa’s womb, mystically imbibes a gay sensibility straight from a performance of the Broadway musical Carousel. Growing up in Beau Pre, Mississippi, Leo develops a fine singing voice just in time to star in a high-school production of Carousel, which makes the girls swoon over him; he dutifully goes steady with one as “camouflage” while secretly pining for a football player. College brings Leo’s first requited—but chaste—relationship with a man. After graduating, Leo moves to New Orleans to write for the Times-Picayune and dives into the city’s thriving gay bar and disco scene. He also joins the New Orleans Gay Resources Coalition, where he mans the volunteer help line and organizes a march to protest the anti-gay rights campaign of entertainer and orange-juice spokeswoman Anita Bryant. Heading into the 1980s, lonely Leo hunkers down as the AIDS epidemic rages but finally finds love with handsome TV weatherman Jay Wilkinson. Lee’s portrait of Leo’s life is subdued but well-observed (the author adds a touch of magical realism) as the narrative traces the gay community’s modern success story. Apart from one incident in which he is tackled by a heckler at a demonstration, Leo personally faces little overt homophobia and seems to easily surmount the crumbling barriers to inclusion. (A series of coming-out scenes with family and coworkers all go well; even elderly Granny Marble gushes with acceptance.) The novel’s drama comes mainly from Leo’s anxieties over a future that seems uncertain and loveless, which Lee depicts in plangent, evocative prose (“He could turn on the gas from one of the burners, lie down and just go to sleep. He hadn’t figured out what would happen after that”). He’s not all that majestic, but readers will root for Leo as he struggles to shake off his isolation and embrace life.
A richly textured saga of a gay everyman moving from self-doubt to pride.
—Kirkus Reviews
R. J. Lee was born and grew up in Natchez, Mississippi, and graduated from Sewanee (University of the South) with a B.A. in English and Creative Writing. Though he now lives in Oxford, Mississippi, he lived for thirty years in New Orleans during which he worked in journalism, advertising, and tourist commission work writing and publishing 16 novels from 1992 to the present. The Majestic Leo Marble is his 17th book.
kpdavis –
We’re excited to present THE MAJESTIC LEO MARBLE. We read it a year or more ahead of release, so we have had this one in our hearts for a while. Welcome to the world, Leo Marble.