Nominated for the Best Gay Fiction Lambda Literary Award, THE RED SHOES is a mesmerizing queer journey through Manhattan’s glittering heights and haunted depths where grief, lust, obsession and redemption intertwine.
After John Laith loses his beloved partner Frank, he believes he’s lost the will to live life fully—until he rescues a handsome young dancer from a brutal assault. By way of thanks, the dancer gives Laith a pair of glittering red shoes which lead him down a dangerous path in a vividly brought to life Manhattan.
On his new journey he must survive obsessive relationships with unpredictable and chillingly unforgettable characters:
- Silvio—a macho city cop
- Crewe—a narcissistic millionaire living in a penthouse with his wife and daughter
- Baily—a drug-addicted bouncer in a nightclub
An innocent in a sinister underworld, Laith must grapple with grief, obsession, lust, sensuality, and spirituality in a city where salvation and destruction walk side by side. He’s left to wonder—is his fascination with the dark side fueled by the magical powers of the red shoes . . . or from hidden forces within himself?
In this riveting battle between the sacred and the profane, Laith must choose: surrender to the darkness, or reclaim the life he thought he’d lost forever.
“Set in contemporary New York City, this is a beautiful dark queer re-envisioning of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale with finely-detailed descriptions, nuanced character development, and an air of mystery that makes the 400+ page text read like a novella.” (Lambda Literary Review)
“I read this so fast I got blisters turning pages. This is so astonishingly good, original, beautiful and amazing . . . it’s like a sumptuous meal with all flavors—salty, bitter, sweet, hot. I love the Gothic feeling of terrible impending doom and the counterbalancing elements of light. I think it’s a great work of art.” (Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner Award winner)
Read an excerpt from THE RED SHOES
“Have you ever had a message from The Other World?”
Peopled by sociopaths, circus performers, tattooed drifters, a cross-dressing teenager at the Plaza Hotel, and born-again God-fearing families, these stories have a hallucinatory edge that makes the everyday seem like another world.
THE OTHER WORLD includes the stories:
The Other World • Nameless Thing • Raphael •
Lights of Broadway • Halloween Card • Vulture
“Haunting and powerful . . .THE OTHER WORLD is one of the best books of the decade.” (The James White Review)
“Wynne’s prose is chiseled and precise. And in pages that tremble with beauty, Wynne gracefully reveals the darker side of human possibilities.” (Details)
“With so much tepid and sentimental fiction coming out, John Wynne’s stories in THE OTHER WORLD are like a plunge in cold water. With a near-Brechtian intensity of focus and an infallible ear for dialogue, Wynne casts a laser eye on the things we say, so different from what we mean. People on the edge, the margins of love. A book to handle with asbestos gloves, but well worth the walk through fire.” (Paul Monette)
Story Book Series from Tree Line Books—individual stories by John Stewart Wynne available only in ebook format
THE SIGHTING • LOUISE, DON’T GO • NARCISSIST • BLONDS • A NIGHT IN THE PAMPAS • THE NEEDLES HIGHWAY • AFTERNOON
Groundbreaking Gay Literary Classic Finally Available Again!
Selected by Ian Young as one of the seminal works of gay literature in his THE MALE HOMOSEXUAL IN LITERATURE: A BIBLIOGRAPHY
Praised by such writers as Hubert Selby Jr., James Purdy, Yves Navarre, Charles Palliser, and Rita Mae Brown
The long-sought-after, out-of-print limited edition chapbook which broke new ground with its startling, wildly imaginative, and deeply moving story of teenage gay love in 1950s rural America is finally back in print as an ebook.
“I strongly urge anyone with an interest in gay fiction to read John Stewart Wynne’s story THE SIGHTING. There is nothing else quite like it, for no other writer has experimented with gay experience in the context of our adolescence in straight America in such a direct, sensual and imaginative manner.” (Gordon Montador/Body Politic)
“THE SIGHTING is absorbingly disconcerting. The story’s 1950s Midwest small town teenage setting—full of randy high school adolescents racing their jalopies to the local drive-in, whose coarse normality is contrasted with a sensitive youth’s realization that he is attracted to other boys—is gradually invaded by elements from another realm of experience—or, perhaps, another kind of literature … There are sightings of a flying saucer above the town, Bela Lugosi in person appears, and at the climax these two interventions are bizarrely and violently counterpointed against a celebration of sensual love between two boys. The juxtaposition of the surreal and the naturalistic in the denouement is oddly satisfying and miraculously unsentimental in its endorsement of the ‘abnormal’ relationship.” (Charles Palliser, author of the international bestseller THE QUINCUNX)
LOUISE, DON’T GOIn the tradition of the classic British ghost story, a poignant tale of a new friendship interrupted by an unexpected, otherworldly turn of events.
In 1953, two retired American elementary schoolteachers—strangers—book the same hotel in the Scottish Highlands. But are they really strangers, and if not, why not?
Shy Alice and gung-ho Louise enjoy exploring together, share similar memories, and when Louise reveals a taboo secret, an unspoken bond is formed . . . Alice prays it won’t end . . . but then an eerie mist comes down from the mountains . . .
NARCISSISTOne spring evening, Tim Grey became restless . . .
A lonely professor living on a rural Indiana farm . . . a good-looking young man on a motorcycle . . .
An unexpected obsession . . . dark, dangerous, sensual . . . and spiraling out of control . . .
A haunting, evocative reimagining of the myth of Narcissus . . .
A deceptively simple love story between Hank, a shy, socially awkward carpenter living in the hedonistic gay resort of Provincetown, and Erik, a 19-year-old runaway. Hank feels he has finally found true love, but dark threads of suspicion, jealousy, and betrayal unexpectedly weave their way into the relationship, as the story builds to a devastating conclusion.
“Tell me about your trip to the Pampas, Uncle Joaquin,” Lillian pleaded. “And don’t leave out a single detail.”
“I’ll tell you. But first I’m going to describe the thing I saw out there in the Pampas, even if it frightens you.”
Joaquin had convinced four former comrades from the upper echelons of the Argentine Air Force, with whom he’d served during the Falklands War, to spend the week between Christmas and New Year’s on a nostalgic hunting trip to the Pampas grasslands.
They encounter a terrifying creature stalking the tall grasses—something feral, vengeful, yet disturbingly familiar. When one of the men turns up dead, the survivors spin a tale of a monster, but the truth is far more unsettling.
A haunting story of revenge, guilt, violence, and betrayal. In the enduring tradition of classic British and American ghost and horror stories, A NIGHT IN THE PAMPAS continues John Stewart Wynne’s exploration of the uncanny with this macabre tale, as he did with reincarnation in his story LOUISE, DON’T GO and a living skeleton in THE NEEDLES HIGHWAY.
It’s difficult to ignore a skeleton driving a pickup truck. It’s even tougher to outrun him. But that’s only the beginning of screenwriter Jed Ackenberry’s troubles . . .
Driving back to L.A. after a visit to his childhood home in Needles, California, Jed realizes that someone—or something—doesn’t want him to get home . . . But why not?
Nothing makes sense. And as the day slips into night, Jed is finally forced to confront an event so terrifying it makes him fear not only for his safety—but also his sanity.
In the vein of the horror tales of Ramsey Campbell, the brooding, paranoid stories of Cornell Woolrich, and told in the masterly style of Shirley Jackson, John Stewart Wynne takes you into the dark heart of one man’s journey.
In a time of fear, even a kiss can feel like a decision.
Set in Los Angeles in 1984, AFTERNOON is a story of longing, impulsive desire, and emotional reckoning during one summer day.
“With his uniquely cool style, John Stewart Wynne has us spend an oddly disturbing afternoon comprised of romance and sex. But not in that order.” (Christopher Street)
Originally published in the US and the UK by the legendary British publisher, John Calder. Now out of print but Tree Line Books has announced it will bring out a new edition in 2026.
Manhattan in the late 1970s is a far different place than it is today. 42nd Street is known as the Deuce, seedy, dangerous, exhilarating.
Jake Adams is a photojournalist who’s directed by his buddy Stewart Reggino, an ex-cop, to the Hotel Dove, a Times Square brothel patronized by, among others, city cops. Jake senses a big story when he suspects the NYPD are using the hotel as the center for a fencing operation. There Jake meets and unexpectedly falls for Renee Cloverman, one of the denizens of the Dove, and they begin an affair.
Though obsessed by Renee’s strange, demonic need to be used and possessed, Jake nonetheless hopes she will change. When he gets an assignment in Colorado, he sends Renee to stay with his sister Ella’s family in an idyllic Connecticut suburb. But with Jake away, Renee becomes bored and disconsolate. The family’s adherence to the mores of suburban domesticity is directly challenged by Renee’s presence, and the chaos she unleashes threatens to consume them all . . .
“CRIME WAVE is about personal and social sado-masochism. The author’s challenging aim seems to be to show that there is no such thing as ‘mindless violence,’ whether directed towards the self or towards others. Each aggressive act is the result of a long cycle of action and reaction, continued through generations. CRIME WAVE is an ambitious first novel.” (Jenny Uglow OBE/The Times Literary Supplement)
“CRIME WAVE, John Wynne’s first novel, is a disturbing and well-written book. An impressive work whose genre is Manhattan lumpen Gothic, the book has a compelling and terrible beauty.” (Barbara Trapido/The Spectator)
