The B-Side of Daniel Garneau

by David Kingston Yeh

Overview

The B-Side of Daniel Garneau concludes a rollicking three-book series set in Toronto featuring the misadventures of boyfriends Daniel and David, their eccentric family and friends. As Daniel prepares to graduate from med school and propose marriage, David sets out to donate his sperm so his brother can have a baby. But as his celebrity ex, Marcus, launches his boldest exhibit yet, an unexpected crisis forces Daniel to re-evaluate his priorities in life.

The B-Side of Daniel Garneau is the inspirational follow-up to A Boy at the Edge of the World (2018) and Tales from the Bottom of My Sole (2020). At turns both comic and tragic, it is a celebration of queer identities and non-traditional families, as Daniel struggles to discover himself and his path in the world. At its heart, it is a philosophical reflection on acceptance and living with courage and love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781771838221
Publisher:	Guernica Editions, Incorporated
Publication date:	10/01/2023
Series:	Essential Prose Series , #210
Pages:	331
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

David Kingston Yeh has worked twenty years as a counsellor and educator in Toronto’s LGBTQ+ community. He holds his MA in sociology from Queen’s University, is an alumnus of George Brown Theatre School, and attended Advanced Graduate Studies in Expressive Arts in Saas Fee, Switzerland. David lives in downtown Toronto up the street from a circus academy, along with his husband and a family of racoons. His short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines. David is the author of three novels exploring queer identities and relationships.

Editorial Reviews

Laugh out loud … Reminiscent of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City.

Reedsy

A timeless, well-crafted story about love, family and friendship that transcends the LGBTQ+ genre.

IndieReader

2023-08-21
A gay young man ponders his future in Yeh’s novel.

Medical student Daniel is in a happy, loving relationship with David in Toronto, but he’s got the nagging sense that not everything is as it should be. For one thing, David’s brother wants him to be a sperm donor for him and his partner, which Daniel isn’t really on board with. In the background is Marcus, who Daniel dated before David and who is often on Daniel’s mind. As the months go by, Daniel starts to realize that he and David are forming a family, and that David has been doing the heavy lifting in their relationship; Daniel resolves to commit to the relationship and ask David to marry him. Of course, once Daniel makes this decision, Marcus reappears (“There he was: my ex-boyfriend in a trench coat and Ray-Bans, leaning against a glorious red convertible with cream-coloured bucket seats. I felt like Mia Sara summoned out of school by Ferris Bueller. It wasn’t a Ferrari 250GT, but it might as well have been”). Ultimately, Daniel has to decide what shape he wants his adult life to take, and whether his “happily ever after” is with David. The novel has a large cast of quirky characters, most of them artists. The narrative covers a year in the life of Daniel, who moves through a series of interesting events on his way to discovering who he is and what he wants; he attends a literary salon in which all of the readers are naked, consoles his peers about their messy love lives, graduates from medical school, fights with his best friend, endures his brother’s homophobic girlfriend, and becomes part of an art exhibit when nude photos of him are included in one of Marcus’ installations. The story is a fun trip through the lives of this eclectic group of friends, and the relationship between Daniel and David is equal parts raunchy and sweet. This is the third book in a trilogy, but it works fine as a standalone story.

A fun, funny look at gay life in Toronto.

Kirkus Reviews