Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Just by Looking at Him | 2023 | Ryan O’Connell | Buy |
Ryan O’Connell’s standalone fiction consists of his debut novel Just by Looking at Him, published in 2023 by Simon & Schuster. The book follows a gay TV writer with cerebral palsy who seems to have everything figured out: a steady boyfriend, a successful career, and a comfortable life in Los Angeles. But he begins secretly hiring sex workers, and the story traces the fallout as his double life grows harder to maintain.
The novel is semi-autobiographical, drawing on O’Connell’s own experiences as a gay man with cerebral palsy working in the entertainment industry. It shares the sharp, self-deprecating tone of his memoir I’m Special, but applies it to fiction for the first time.
Just by Looking at Him received attention for its frank treatment of disability and sexuality, subjects that rarely appear together in literary fiction. O’Connell’s background as a memoirist and essayist shows in the novel’s confessional voice and its willingness to make its protagonist difficult to root for.