The Evanston Public Library launched Tuesday its monthly LGBTQ book meetings, which aim to discuss the relationship between books, their authors and the LGBTQ community.

Greg Salustro, the former chair of Chicago’s annual LGBTQ film festival, led the first discussion, which focused on Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest.” 

A former Evanston arts commissioner, Salustro brought the idea of the monthly discussions to EPL, where the library’s head of adult services Lesley Williams helped bring it to life.

He led the discussion Tuesday evening, which was attended by fewer than ten people.

“I thought it was a great way to get someone from the community involved in our programming,” Williams said.

Salustro approached the library with the idea in part because he thought a lot was happening within the LGBTQ community. He said he wanted to see the LGBTQ community become more open and visible in Evanston.

“My thinking is if we (the LGBTQ community) understand ourselves and our issues through literature, we’ll be able to communicate who we are a little bit more openly and broadly to a larger audience here in Evanston,” Salustro said.

Williams said she and Salustro worked together to pick the literature for these discussions. They tried to pick a variety of works including short essays, plays, fiction and poetry from various authors, she said.

Salustro said he picked “The Importance of Being Earnest” partly because of the idea of secret identities and how the characters are forced to reveal them in the play.

“People that grow up gay particularly in my generation have a hidden life until we come out,” he said. “For me it’s much, much better to be out of the closet, but it is also fun having that second identity as a young person.”

In the discussion, Salustro brought up the idea of code words that Wilde uses in the play. According to Salustro’s footnotes, words like “curious” and “German” referred to homosexuality at the time Wilde wrote the play.

Rachel Larson, 19, said she came to the book discussion because she’s read other works by Oscar Wilde and appreciates his work. One of the main ideas she took away from the play was to be more “spontaneous” like the character Algernon, she said.

Salustro said he enjoyed leading the first book discussion. He said he liked getting new perspectives and felt like there were a variety of views discussed at the meeting.

The LGBTQ book discussions will continue to be held the second Tuesday of each month. The next book that will be discussed is Rita Mae Brown’s “Rubyfruit Jungle” on Nov. 11.

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