Richard Willett

His novel A Friend of Dorothy’s, a coming of age novel set at the start of the AIDS epidemic in 1980s New York City, was published on June 15th, 2025.

Richard Willett wrote A Friend of Dorothy’s when he was in his twenties. Excerpts appeared in the legendary gay literary magazine Christopher Street and in Permafrost at the University of Alaska, as well as being short-listed for New American Library’s Men on Men: Best New Gay Fiction. But the novel dismayed just as many editors, who especially clutched their pearls over its overtly sexual final chapter, and the book itself never found a home. Until now. 

STARRED REVIEW: “Willett depicts Dale’s illness in unflinching detail but avoids maudlin sentimentality—almost until the end, Dale remains a spirited, bitchy, shrewd, and charismatic man, and his and Eric’s recollections paint a vibrant portrait of gay life in the late 1970s. Writing with a hangdog wit (‘Was it maybe true that the only way Eric could feel relaxed at a party was if the host had a terminal illness?’), Willett manages the difficult task of making an AIDS story funny; then, through a skillful accretion of matter-of-fact details, he vividly conveys the pathos of Dale’s decline and Eric’s fumbling, tender response. Readers will be laughing through their tears.”—Kirkus Reviews

EDITOR’S PICK: “Although A FRIEND OF DOROTHY’S was completed in 1991 and captures the emotional turmoil of a gay man’s sexual awakening during the height of AIDS with nuance and immediacy, playwright Willett’s urgent novel doesn’t easily fit into genre conventions. . . . But his greatest strength is depicting the pain and bliss of male bodies: Eric’s torturous childhood treatment for scoliosis; Dale’s physical and mental decline, rendered as a tableau of escalating humiliations; and a chapter explicitly detailing Eric’s encounters with a lover committed to showing him pleasure. Even though Willett’s protagonist is awash in fear, after a lifetime of thwarted and misdirected desire, sexual fulfillment is a revelation, and he comes to epitomize the mind/body disconnect that can lead people to deny their full humanity. TAKEAWAY: Powerful novel of queer self-discovery amid the AIDS crisis in 1980s New York.”—Publishers Weekly’s BookLife

“Nothing can have prepared you for the wit and insight, the eccentricity and inspiring optimism with which this consistently surprising young writer depicts a year at the heart of his generation’s greatest calamity.”—Joseph Pintauro, author of Cold Hands and Raft of the Medusa

“There is a knowingness, a sense of timing, a compassion and forgiveness under all the action, character to character. What Richard Willett has—in abundance—is love for the people he is chronicling and, by recording, saving.”—Allan Gurganus, author of The Practical Heart, Plays Well with Others, and Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All

“The writing is poignant, realistic and fine; the reader is pierced and instantly seduced by the characters’ appeal and immediacy.”—Harlan Greene, author of The German Officer’s Boy, What the Dead Remember, and Why We Never Danced the Charleston

ISBN: 979-8-9923398-0-2 (hardcover)
$27.99 (usa) $39.99 (can) £21.99 (uk) $43.99 (aus)
ISBN: 979-8-9923398-1-9 (paperback)
$17.99 (usa) $25.99 (can) £16.99 (uk) $27.99 (aus)
ISBN:  979-8-9923398-2-6 (e-book)
$ 6.99 (usa) $11.99 (can) $12.99 (aus)

CLICK HERE to find a local bookstore where you can order  a paperback or hardcover edition of A Friend of Dorothy’s. 

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CLICK HERE to order paperback, hardcover, or ebook editions of A Friend of Dorothy’s from an online bookstore.

CLICK HERE to order the hardcover edition directly through The Magic Show Press‘s distributor (US and UK only).

CLICK HERE to order the paperback edition directly through The Magic Show Press‘s distributor (US and UK only).

CLICK HERE to order the e-book edition from The Magic Show Press (distributed via Gumroad/Bookfunnel.)

 

UPCOMING WORKS

The Gazebo

After placing in the finals of twelve different short screenplay competitions (including the Austin Film Festival, the Page International, the Shore Scripts Short Film Fund, and the ScreenCraft Short Film Production Fund), Richard’s script THE GAZEBO is shooting in New York in June, directed by William Pennell and starring Maria Gobetti and Matthew Maguire.

Here’s Looking At You

Just prior to the pandemic, Richard joined forces with Danish actress Annemette Andersen and Norwegian director Henning Hegland to begin work on HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU, in which the actress Ingrid Bergman takes the audience on a moving and surprising journey through her eventful life, a life that was in many ways ahead of its time. Having emerged from the delays of lockdown, the team has brought a producer, designers, and a development director on board and has been pursuing funding, with plans to develop the project further on stage in 2025, in Iceland and in Silkeborg, Denmark.