As I read it, I thought, “This is gay, right? I’m pretty sure this is gay. Despite being a voracious reader and seeking out queer stories, I stumbled into my first queer book without any awareness of its sapphic content. The first book I remember reading with a queer protagonist-not a book with a hilarious gay best friend, not a book that made a queer person the punchline-was The Color Purple by Alice Walker.
