Maurice is a novel that almost didn't exist in public at all. E.M. Forster wrote it in 1913, at the height of his career, and then put it away, certain that a story about queer love with a happy ending had no place in the world he was publishing into. It wasn't released until 1971, a year after his death.

The novel follows Maurice Hall, a young Englishman who falls in love with a fellow student at Cambridge, only to watch that relationship dissolve into convention and silence. What follows is Maurice's long, uncertain search for a life built around honesty rather than safety, one that leads him somewhere he never expected. Forster insisted on giving Maurice a future. For a novel written in 1913, that alone made it radical.

Join us for this month's PrideReads meeting as we talk through Maurice's journey, the decades Forster spent protecting this story, and what it means to read a book that had to wait so long to be believed in.

Pick up your copy at Tomorrow Bookstore ahead of time, or come as you are. All you need is a willingness to talk.