Composed in a spirit of poetic reverie, and following a tradition of queer portraiture (e.g., Gertrude Stein’s Three Lives, H.D’s Tribute to Freud, David Plante’s Difficult Women: A Portrait of Three, and Hilton Als’ The Women) and queer theory (especially Michel Foucault, “Friendship as a Way of Life,” and Eve Sedgwick, The Epistemology of the Closet), Appearances: Scenes from a Queer Friendship attempts to enact the forms, literary and relational, made possible by a friendship between a gay man and a lesbian, both of Italian descent. Portions of this manuscript, among Cappello’s most experimental work, appear in American Letters and Commentary and in Quarterly West. “Conjuring,” an excerpt, was cited as a Notable Essay of the Year in Best American Essays 2005 edited by Susan Orlean with series editor Robert Atwan.
