New LGBTQ+ Novel Release The Magus and The Fool: A Queer and Trans-Positive Retelling of The Great Gatsby

AUSTIN, Texas - PrZen -- "The LGBTQ+ community is being hit hard bigotted by people in power. They want our books out of public libraries. They want transgender children segregated and their supportive parents investigated. "Don't say gay" is their battle cry. Literature is an exacting weapon in our armory, and I choose to wield it mightily."
Akiva Hersh, Boy in the Hole and The Magus and The Fool.

About The Magus and The Fool
Publication date: 3/29/2022
Pre-Order available now.
ARCs are available to the media by request.

Carry Iverson needs a change of pace from his predictable life in Ohio. He takes a position with a social justice firm in Austin and rents a cottage on Lake Travis. At a bewildering dinner with his cousin, Donovan, his wife, Fallon, and an alluring transgender man, Levi, Carry discovers his neighbor is a wealthy and mysterious man who has everyone talking.

Carry's curiosity turns into attraction after meeting the flirtatious Jacobi at one of his parties. But Jacobi has a secret desire of his own: he is in love with Donovan. Now Carry finds himself caught in the middle of a reckless love triangle with Fallon, who is hellbent on destroying Jacobi to keep her wayward husband from straying.

Passion and jealousy reach a fever pitch when the carefully designed lives of Carry, Jacobi, Donovan, Fallon, and Levi unravel.

This provocative and explosive story is about what happens at the intersection of obsession and tragedy and explores the frailty of hope and agony over what could have been but never was, two forces that pull us into lives that we were never meant to live.

"Those who have read The Great Gatsby, even if some time ago, would do well to pursue The Magus and the Fool in light of a rereading of that classic. It's highly recommended for LBGTQ collections, of course; but beyond that, the story ideally will reach into any literary library strong in tales of love, life challenges, and sexual and social revelations."

D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

"The Magus and The Fool is a riveting LGBTQ+ retelling that updates The Great Gatsby with aplomb and contemporary resonance."
BookLife Reviews

About the Author
Akiva Hersh has degrees in neurolinguistics and theology and has helped abuse survivors, victims of bullying, and those struggling to come out as LGBTQ+; and has volumes to say about how friends, families, and schools can help.