Creatures of Light

Discovered herding goats by the struggling travelling actors of Teatro Gruppo, seventeen-year-old Sicilian Gatino possesses breathtaking physical beauty, feline grace, and an almost supernatural talent for performance. His facility with languages, mime, dance, hard work and sexual appeal, rockets Gatino from humble roots to the star of European stages in Berlin and Paris. Nurtured by impresario Naum Rozenberg, his fame grows as he conquers the nascent art of silent film. But Naum is unable to keep the young man to himself and Gatino's heart is captured by Freddie Gage, scion of a New York financial empire.

Gage is in Paris trying to reimagine his life, or run away from it, and falling in love with Gatino seems a heaven-sent destiny. His family, however, seek his return to New York and his responsibilities there and, with subterfuge, create a break. Gage is friends with established New Yorkers Robert and Donough Gaylord and their neighbors Vadriel Vail and lover Armand de Guise. Set against a backdrop of the first voyage of the Titanic, and the flourishing silent film industry of Paris and New York, queer life of the times is the thread stitching multiple stories together.

Ambitious, erudite, and lush, Children of Light is an explicitly, joyfully, unapologetically celebration of queer love. Offering densely textured prose, rich with literary and historical allusion, this third installment of the Gaywyck Quartet is pure delight, over-the-top fun, and peppered with heart-breaking events that reflect its epic romance. Christopher Bram provides an introduction.

"Vincent Virga, weaving his spell for a – yes, spellbound readership, matching the enchantment of the first generation of the motion picture, embraces us with the moving rhythms and page turning progress off this long awaited third volume of his epic Gaywyck quartet – another triumphant rendering of his mastery of that most exacting tradition, the High Romance." — James McCourt