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“A cowardly brew of things churned in me,” Giovanni thinks to himself, paralyzed at making a decision about his future, “laziness, responsibility, and the two-pronged fear of losing and disappointing him.” But when his partner’s condition surprisingly improves, Giovanni must confront his problems head-on, just as the curtain is pulled off his family’s most blush-making secrets.

Fox, who has been an editor at Maisonneuve and Toronto Life, is also the author of “Cities of Weather.” He is based in Berlin.

What did you last read and what made you read it?

For my birthday, my friends gave me a gift certificate for a queer bookstore. I went in with no intentions and blew their cash on selections made right from the shelves. (They) included “Pity” by Andrew McMillan. Aptly named, as I found it a letdown, but letdowns often tell me more about writing than gems. The risk is part of the fun — and the education.

What book would your readers be shocked to find in your collection?

The goofy 1983 pulp romance “I Lost It All in Montreal.” It’s a title in search of a book, but the covers — and every word between them — are unintentionally hilarious. It’s equal parts self-deluded and self-aggrandizing, and I’m surprised it’s not a camp classic. (Upon writing this, I realize my readers may not be that shocked.)

When was the last time you devoured a book in one, or very few, sittings?

February. It was “Pervatory” by the late RM Vaughan, a 200-page middle finger to delicate Canadian sensibilities. It doesn’t spare my current home of Berlin either. I loved it.

Who’s the one author or what’s the one book you’ll never understand, despite the praise?

Book clubbers and bookstagrammers will come at me with pitchforks for this, but “A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara. I do not get the collective swoon over this book. While the prose is nearly flawless, the emotional grinder it sets up for its protagonist is, in progression, gratuitous, improbable, scoff-worthy and pornographic. It also misunderstands the gay experience, presenting straight people as the only saviours of queer people. I threw it across the room.

What’s the one book that has not garnered the success that it deserves?

In all the rightful praise for the film “Carol,” its source material was drowned out. Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel “The Price of Salt” (renamed “Carol” in 1990) is a page-turner powerhouse that doesn’t skimp on literary ambition or lesbianism. A towering love story that I will praise until the grave.

What book would you give anything to read again for the first time?

“Beautiful Losers.” Seeing what Leonard Cohen could do with a sentence, with sex, with religion, showed me the possibilities of fiction. That book dug permanent tunnels in my adolescent brain. I wander them regularly.

When you were 10 years old, what was your favourite book?

At 10, I moved from an all-French school in Windsor to a mostly English school in Toronto. “Le Petit Prince,” in French, was a book I read over and over as I adjusted. It also features a frisky fox, with whom I identified, largely for nominal reasons.

What fictional character would you like to be friends with?

Sutherland from “Dancer From the Dance.” He’d make light of my pretensions, deflate my ennui and ensure we’d skip the lines at the best clubs in town.

Do you have a comfort read that you revisit?

I go back to “Giovanni’s Room” every few years. It’s reassuring to be reminded that a work of literature can be so expertly calibrated.

What was the last book that made you laugh or cry?

Both laugh and cry: “Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel. No description I give you can equal the experience of this graphic novel’s wry, knowing humour or its circular, devastating psychology.

What is the one book you wish you had written?

I deeply admire Mavis Gallant’s “Linnet Muir” stories. They alchemize fiction, memory and identity, all while stringing discrete tales along a narrative thread. This is something I try to do in my writing, especially in my new novel, “This Is It.” Gallant was a master.

What three authors living or dead would you like to have a coffee with?

Lorrie Moore for the jokes, JT Leroy because he never existed, and Saint John the Evangelist for the gossip.

What does your definition of personal literary success look like?

Earning enough from fiction writing to keep writing fiction.