Burly Tales: Fairy Tales for the Hirsute and Hefty Gay Man

This anthology of romances, adapted from fairy tales and fables, runs the gamut: from short stories to poetry, from contemporary settings to fantasy, from humorous to serious; all of them celebrate the beauty of large, hairy men. In “A Giant Problem,” by Charles Payseur, little human pests invade the cloud home of a vegetarian giant who needs a catch-and-release exterminator to be his hero. Alysha MacDonald’s “The Man Who Drew Cats” features a solitary monk, obsessed with drawing cats, who falls for the tengu (a bird-like demon) in the woods. In “El Muerto’s Godson,” by Evey Brett, a local curandero who grew up in Death’s shadow must choose between life and love. Other tales are from B. J. Fry, John T. Fuller, John Linwood Grant, Jonathan Harper, James K. Moran, Rob Rosen, Mark Ward, M. Yuan-Innes, and Ann Zeddies. They reimagine “Three Billy Goats Gruff”; “The Twelve Dancing Princesses”; “Bluebeard”; “The Three Little Pigs”; “Snow-White and Rose-Red”; “The Emperor’s New Clothes”; “Rapunzel”; “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”; and “East of the Sun and West of the Moon.” Lambda Award winner Berman edits the wide-ranging, body-positive anthology. The heat level is low to moderate, and the depictions are less graphic than the fairy tales that inspired them; two stories allude to nonconsensual encounters.