Summer reading: Lance Ringel’s Floridian Nights

Distant Mirror Press recently announced that Lance Ringel’s most recent novel, Floridian Nights, was named a finalist for both a 2022 Lambda Literary Award and a Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award.

The announcements were made even as Ringel’s new play, Flash/Frozen, continues its run at Theatre Row on 42nd Street in New York City.

Ringel thus becomes a two-time finalist for both awards. Last year, his debut novel Flower of Iowa was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award (colloquially known as the Lammys) in the same category for which Floridian Nights is nominated this year, Gay Romance. And Flower of Iowa was the Gold Winner in last year’s Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards for the War & Military Fiction category. Floridian Nights breaks ground with this year’s INDIES nomination, which comes in the Romance category – a rare achievement for a novel with a gay male relationship at its center.

Floridian Nights centers on a gay widower who contends with bereavement and new love against the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic in 1988 New York and Florida. The widely acclaimed Flower of Iowa, an epic love story between two soldiers in the First World War, won additional book awards across a variety of categories. In Ringel’s play Flash/Frozen, which just completed a run at Theatre Row, the fates of two young men collide in a drama based on true events surrounding the tragic 1961 plane crash that took the lives of the U.S. Figure Skating Team.

What the critics say about Floridian Nights:

Floridian Nights is a deeply pleasurable read. Ringel creates flawed, complex and sympathetic characters we care about, one of whom is grappling with grief after his lover’s horrific murder. Set in New York City and Florida during the AIDS crisis, the books overflows with atmosphere, terrific dialogue, tenderness, and insight into the human heart. Yes, it captures what it meant to be alive in a traumatic time, but it also captures what it means to be human in any era. A flat-out wonderful book.   — Sebastian Stuart, author of The Hour Between winner of the Ferro-Grumley Award for Fiction.

Find out more about Lance Ringel here.