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For many Southerners, especially those of us descended from generation upon generation of British, Irish, Scots and French forebears, the Civil War (A.K.A. The War between the States, The War of Northern Aggression, The Late Unpleasantness) is never far from our thoughts. Like a movie within a movie, a looped tape, or parallel reality, the war—its causes and outsize characters, its victories and defeats, the awful aftermath of Reconstruction and segregation—are endlessly replayed, debated, mourned, celebrated and reenacted. It’s almost as if, by turning up new bits of information or reimagining the details of crucial events, we might alter the outcome for the better.

Even today, some of us retain memories of the war. My maternal great grandmother was born in slavery times in Tennessee. Her father, a Confederate officer, was part of the Army of Tennessee that withdrew south prior to the battles of Kennesaw Mountain and Atlanta, and she remembered and later wrote about being a child of the war. When she died in Nashville in 1950, I was in the house, a ten-year-old doorkeeper attending to worried callers. In her last delirium, I was told later, she mourned not two dead husbands, not parents and friends, but the five Confederate generals who died during the Battle of Franklin in 1864. I remember that. 

Jeff Mann’s spectacular adventure-romance, Purgatory, creates war-related images and incidents I’d never imagined; characters who may have existed but who, until Dr. Mann conjured them out of history books, fevered dreams, blood-lusty desire and poetical sensibility, never appeared on any printed page, at least that I’m aware of.

The time and place: March 2, 1865, the Battle of Waynesboro, Virginia, and skirmishes thereafter, which will culminate at Appomattox the following month. The result: Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal Early’s forces are destroyed, with many killed and 1,500 captured, by the superior forces, masterful maneuvering and plain good luck of Union Major General Philip Sheridan’s gunners and cavalry divisions. General Early and his staff manage to escape, as do Mann’s fictional, untidy band of about two dozen half-starved volunteers from the Greenbrier country in West Virginia.  Among them soon arrives a lone Yankee prisoner, Drew Conrad, 20, a giant of a man, a Pennsylvania farm boy captured in the ensuing melee by the squad’s cruel, prudish, unbending leader, “Sarge” Erastus Campbell, who happens to be the uncle of the narrator, a bookish, bespectacled and diminutive private named Ian Campbell.

The man’s big and blond. His hands are tied in front of him and tethered to Sarge’s saddle horn. He’s bare-headed, cap lost in some scuffle, I guess, dressed in Union blue and muddy boots, and he’s gasping and stumbling, trying to keep up with the horse’s pace.

Oh, God, not again. A man that young and brawny, that’s the kind of prisoner Sarge tends to keep. I know what’s coming next, and it makes my belly hurt. Sarge has done this before, despite the proper rules of combat. No one in the company’s got the guts to object. Guess they’re afraid if they do, they might end up suffering like the Yankees. Besides, most of them enjoy the spectacle and convenience of a helpless foe to focus their rage on. The war’s been going on for years; despair and exhaustion make men mean.

“‘Ian! Get over here!’ Sarge yells. I lope over just as the Yankee slips in the mud, falls onto one knee, then hits the ground face first.”

Sarge, it seems, has a taste for torturing prisoners, a kink his nephew soon discovers in himself. In rapid succession, Ian becomes his brother warrior’s keeper; briefly and only partially unwillingly, his tormentor, and finally his lover.

The love scenes early in the novel are just that: tender explorations of feelings, touch, breath and warmth:

"I slide against him, tugging my blanket off the cot to supplement his; I pull the doubled wool over us, tucking it around his bare shoulders. Then I do what I’ve ached to do for days: I slide one arm beneath his neck, wrap the other around his bare torso as best I can, considering my significantly smaller frame, and hold him close, his broad back pressed against my uniform jacket. Surely he can feel the physical evidence of my excitement against him, hard inside my wool pants, but, if so, he makes no objections, and besides, it’s my heart and not my groin that rules tonight. As much as I want to make love to him, it’s comforting, not fucking, he’s asked for, and that’s what he’ll receive. I may be an accomplice to torture but I still have some honor left."

The narrative line is a tale of retreat, survival, hardship and last-minute escapes punctuated by scrapes, repeated torture of the unfortunate Yankee, and stealing, begging and bargaining for food. One of the most memorable images is that of an attractive young female trader who transports hams, coffee, fried pies, beef jerky and other comestibles under her voluminous skirts. 

Food plays a big part in the novel. For men living out in the open, a hoecake or biscuit and a slice of warm bacon might be the difference between starvation and carrying on another day. When supplies run low, the soldiers are forced to consume such dainties as roasted rat with peanut sauce and weevil-infested hardtack. Mann’s well-known interest in traditional Appalachian fare gives the novel a kind of edible sub-plot. Among the sources listed in the bibliography, cookbooks and culinary histories far outnumber the works devoted to sex and everyday military life. Not surprisingly, the only other sympathetic male characters in the novel, besides Ian and Drew, are Rufus, the cook, and Jeremiah, a soldier whose brother left home after being caught kissing another man. Against the orders of Sarge, they conspire with Ian to share enough food and drink to keep the prisoner alive.

Sarge, whose wife was shot and killed by a Yankee soldier, seems to believe this loss gives him a pass to massacre the Union Army—one captive at a time. Drew, Ian explains to his prisoner, is one of a succession.

Sarge has his fun for two or three weeks, till the prisoner dies on him after such steady abuse, or till Sarge gets bored and murders him. I’m in charge of them while they last. I keep them tied, I feed them, I mend them as best I can for Sarge to beat on and break down again. And eventually, I bury them.

Sarge, in other words is a coward and petty tyrant with no further interest in facing the enemy. On several occasions he and his men hide behind trees and rocks, silent and still, as figures such as George Custer and Philip Sheridan ride by. Might a few choice shots, even then, have changed the course of the war? Probably not, but Sarge is unwilling to risk his own skin even on that faint chance. His excuse? That he’s shepherding his ragtag band toward Petersburg, there to join forces with the larger army for the ultimate battle that may turn the tide of history.

That he spends considerably less time traveling than attending church, drinking whiskey and torturing Drew gives lie to his stated intention.

The varieties of torture are manifold. Drew is whipped with Ian’s leather belt and Sarge’s bullwhip. Variously he is strung from a branch, tied to a tree or “bucked”—bent over a sawhorse and tied to it. He is kicked, punched, slapped, pissed on, spat on and insulted verbally and physically.

On at least three occasions, Weasel-Tooth George, the most repellant of Sarge’s men, proposes to “poke” the gagged prisoner’s naked, bleeding ass as further proof of Confederate scorn. Here Sarge draws the line. Ian, a bit later, does indeed poke his by-then willing lover, albeit under very different circumstances. There are no complaints.

Drew is presented as herculean, a giant rippling with muscles, an Achilles. And yet he has a softer side: “I didn’t take it. I cried when your uncle whipped me and I cried when I was bucked. I break easy, Ian.” Drew’s voice is low, shaky. “I may look strong, but I’ve got this scared little boy inside me. His tears shame me again and again.”

From what I know of  Mann, both as an admirer of his work and as a fellow laborer in the garden of Southern fiction, it’s clear that Drew is here speaking in the author’s voice. Purgatory is a celebration of much that not only fascinates but drives the author: bondage and submission, the eroticization of pain, mountain men living the outdoor life, traditional food well prepared and enjoyed, the love of one man for another, and the quest for the precisely right word or phrase.

Full disclosure: bondage and pain hold little interest for me. Culinary matters, military adventure, manly love and good writing, on the other hand, define much of my own life and work. Were Purgatory merely a succession of torture scenes interposed with stealthy hand-feedings of the captive, I wouldn’t bother with it.

Mann, however, has more in mind than mere flesh, blood and spit-roasted rabbit. Drew is presented early and often as a Christ figure. Toward the end, he is forced to march carrying a thick branch tied across his shoulders and outstretched arms:

Drew’s brow furrows. He grunts, tries to rise, sags beneath the wood’s weight, then, heaving himself to his feet, straightens up, white teeth gnashing the rag and grim determination stiffening his features.

 With this image of the suffering innocent stumbling toward Golgotha (Purgatory the place is in reality Purgatory Mountain, Virginia), the reference is clear enough, as it is in soaring earlier images such as this:

If Drew’s torment reminded me of Christ’s before, it does even more so today. During his week of captivity, his beard has filled out and his hair has grown shaggier. He’s like a German-blond version of Jesus. This morning he’s white, bruise-violet, and gold, a cuffed, rag-gagged, black-eyed savior wrist-tethered to my cart, trudging beside me along the road to Purgatory. He’s naked, save for slave-collar, layered bandages—those with which I’ve plastered his lash-maimed back, those which I’ve knotted into a makeshift loincloth around his hips—and a spare undershirt I’ve torn into pieces and bound about his feet. All that are missing are the crown of thorns and the Cross. Or rather, those take another form, the racked and bruised body he carries stiffly down the road.

Mann’s writing combines elegance and earthiness in realistic passages that move the action along swiftly and dramatically. A professor at Virginia Tech, Mann has taught such courses as Appalachian folk culture, gay and lesbian literature and creative writing. His familiarity with Southern history and American lit color and enrich the narrative. Whether intended or not, the cast of characters recalls that of Melville’s Billy Budd, with Drew the Billy-Christ martyr figure, George the repressed Claggart and Sarge an unreflecting Captain Vere. The novel’s last page, in which the lovers try to imagine the future, calls to mind nothing less than Prior Walter’s blessing in the final scene of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America.

Still, Mann didn’t quite convince me to suspend my disbelief in the possibility that even a strong young man could be kept on the edge of starvation, forced to sleep naked in the snow, marched mile after mile tied to a cart and whipped into bloody insensibility on an almost daily basis—and walk away from it so easily. Occasionally, the succession of BDSM incidents reminded me of the kind of porn in which each of the partners enjoys five or six explosive orgasms and then, after a few hours’ sleep, repeat the exercise. Could happen; feels improbable to me.

As does some of the language. Despite his book-learning, it seems doubtful that Ian would know and correctly use the word “trauma.” It’s just possible he might be on familiar terms with Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.

No matter. For lovers of gay historical fiction, fans of BDSM action and open-minded students of the Civil War, Purgatory is required reading.

Reviewed by Elliott Mackle

About Elliott Mackle

Elliott Mackle has published three novels. Captain Harding’s Six-Day War (Lethe Press) was named best gay historical novel of 2011 by the UK book-review blog, Speak Its Name. Hot off the Presses (Lethe, 2010), is based on Mackle’s adventures as a lead reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution during the Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996. It Takes Two (Alyson Books, 2003), his first, was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. He has written for Travel & Leisure, Food & Wine, the Los Angeles Times, Florida Historical Quarterly and Atlanta and Charleston magazines, and for public television. A longtime columnist at Creative Loafing, the South’s leading alternative newsweekly, Mackle earned a PhD in American Studies at Emory University and taught critical and editorial writing at Georgia State University. He maintains two websites, www.elliottmackle.com and www.elliottmacklebooks.com. Contact him there.

To purchase go to Signal 8 Press

I’ve always admired short story writers who color outside the lines. It’s also admirable in novelists but more difficult to pull off as the length of a novel dictates firmer grounding. Short stories, however, can be bite-sized bits of bizarre you can re-read if you find them particularly toothsome or move on to the next morsel. That’s what makes Marshall Moore’s latest smorgasbord, The Infernal Republic, so damn tasty.

From the two young women anxiously awaiting the suicide of a jumper (“Urban Reef, or It’s Hard to Find a Friend in the City”) to the motivational speaker held accountable for her crimes (“In Springtime, You Can Hear the Swallows Screaming”) to the pull-apart boy who can’t stop trying to kill himself (“Flesh, Blood, and Some of the Parts”) most of Moore’s characters have suffered some societal disconnect that has alienated them from their host communities, setting them apart and enabling them to see themselves and others more clearly. Their outsider status is as enviable as it is refreshing in its clarity.

One of Moore’s recent Facebook posts indicates an unnamed reviewer returned The Infernal Republic, claiming it wasn’t “gay enough” to warrant a review. While its true that some of Moore’s stories are about straight women, some about straight men and others examine the world of relationships between the two, others are about houses of indeterminate gender and, yes, even gay couples. Their aforementioned outsider status trumps sexual orientation in terms of what the story says rather than who populates it. Just read the news if you don’t think we’re still considered outsiders. In that respect, there’s not a story here that’s not gayer than “Glee.”

And if that’s your reason for skipping this book, understand that you are missing a magnificent writer at his darkest and most mordant. Only an author as warped as Moore would take on a second-tier superhero love affair (“Filth and Splendor: A Love Story”) between a boy who has the power to make people leak and a girl who can kill as quickly as she can resurrect. Or tell a haunted house story from the house’s point of view (“215”). Or enable us to witness the Savior and Satan betting on whether or not a million monkeys sitting at a million typewriters would be able to reproduce Shakespeare (“The Infinite Monkey Theorem”).

Moore’s talent for finding normalcy in the oddest situations comes to the fore in nearly every entry here. His prose is sharp and his characters deftly drawn in thought as well as deed, and even his shortest pieces have unrepentently powerful punchlines. Moore focuses his talent at well-chosen targets and obliterates the center of each one. Highly recommended.

But be warned, once you read “215,” you’ll think twice about your next remodeling project.

Buy it direct from Bold Strokes Books

I am always fascinated in and engaged by stories of queer history. Such tales are important to maintaining a sense of community and ancestry, qualities I find comforting as I turn into an eldergay (well, I’m already there, truth be told). So, when I heard about this anthology of four novellas, I was very excited—even more so when I read who would be editing and who would be participating. And I was not disappointed.

This wonderful collection begins with Jeff Mann’s “Camp Allegheny,” a lusty tale of love between older daddy Shep Sumter and young’un Brendan Botkin, two soldiers during the Civil … um, excuse me, Jeff … the War of Northern Aggression. The two share a cabin during their unit’s entrenchment in the mountains of Virginia. Mann is in his element here—war, sweat, piss, bondage, meals—but his work is particularly muscular here. He seems energized by his research and finds the heart of both these characters easily. The ending is emblematic of war stories and not unexpected, but Mann pulls it off with the assurance and mastery we’ve come to expect. A fine beginning.

Simon Sheppard’s “Heaven on Earth” was surprising to me. Not because I don’t like Sheppard’s work—I’ve very much enjoyed what I’ve read. But stories of queer life on the run during Depression-era America don’t exactly grow on trees, and this one is steeped in the transitory rootlessness of that period. Like Mann, Sheppard has found the very heart of both small-time crook Eli and gas pump jockey Jake and wound them together as they fuck and suck their courage up to commit a robbery of Reverend Cobey’s Traveling Crusade along with henchman Duane. But of course, things don’t go as planned—and that includes the ending.

“Tender Mercies” puts Dale Chase squarely in her comfort zone, spinning the marvelously atmospheric tale of Luke Farrow, the “boy” of the gold mining camp Beeler Gulch, set during California’s Gold Rush days. Luke’s lucrative profession has won him many luxuries but taken a toll on his heart as well as his body. Enter one Cullen Markey, who has promised to make Luke his own, despite some serious claim jumping accusations. Chase turns in bravura work here, taking full advantage of the long form to really deepen her characters, creating interesting cameos of even the minor players.

The only wild card is David Holly’s “The Valley of Salt,” a tale of Biblical buggery that traces young Zedek from sacrifical butt-boy kidnapped in Gomorrah to a trek through the desert to Sodom and back. His notes indicate this is a “work of fiction untainted by historical accuracy,” and its language certainly shows that. A bit off-putting at first, I finally got used to the anachronistic speech and let the tale work its magic—which was considerable. It still jarred me, occasionally. You’ll have to be the judge here.

But these stories are admirably done. Kudos to all, including editor Richard Labonte and Bold Strokes Books for having the foresight to let these four masters of erotica have their head (so to speak) and deliver the goods.

Buy it now from TLA.com

The first time I met Charles Rice-Gonzalez, we were being held hostage by TSA at Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans. Funny how that can draw people together. A few years later, my fellow passenger-in-crime has finished his debut novel, Chulito, a book guaranteed to help you while away even the most harrowing airport experience.

Teenaged Chulito never gets far from the Hunts Point corner where he grew up in Brooklyn and never sees much of anyone except his fellow ‘hood rats Looney Tunes and Chin-Chin or his boss, the drug-dealing Kamikaze. But he remembers Carlos, the boy he fell in love with, even though he’s loathe to admit it. Carlos escaped to college, but when he comes back for the summer, Chulito is forced to re-examine his feelings, his life and his future.

Simply put, Chulito is an amazing first novel full of fire and grace, with a sense of place that will have you smelling all the streetcorner grime the Bronx has to offer. Chulito and Carlos are wonderfully well-defined, and their “c’mere/get away” relationship is as explosive as it is nourishing for both of them. The anguish Chulito feels at having to decide between his love and his friends is heartbreakingly palpable.

But the relationship between Chulito and his boss, gangsta Kamikaze is nearly as interesting. Kaz also loves Chulito, though not in the homosexual sense. Or does he? There is a subtle homoeroticism running through what is ostensibly a bond of friendship, but Kaz is so unpredictable that he keeps Chulito guessing. Will Kaz understand that he has to quit the “game” to keep Carlos? Will he accept him as an out gay man? Or will he pop a cap in his ass? Rice-Gonzalez plays all this out in the Bronx's humid closeness, with only occasional outings to the freer atmosphere of the East Village where Carlos’ other friends reside.

His prose is lean and concise, with just enough slang for flavor. And his eye for detail is incredible. One marvelous example of this is that Chulito cannot dance. Refuses to. And when he’s forced to, he just stands in one spot and bobs his head, bound by his own restraints—until he comes out, that is. That leads to a moving ending that has Chulito finally letting go, dancing his heart out on a rooftop in a moment that will bring tears to your eyes. Touches like that (and that’s only an obvious one) really make this book sing.

Charles Rice-Gonzalez has crafted a passionate story of love, heartbreak, defeat and triumph that is as personal as it is universal.

I’m very glad TSA let him (and me) go.

Edmund White is the author of over twenty books including twelve novels such as A Boy’s Own Story and The Farewell Symphony.  He has also written biographies of Genet, Marcel Proust, and Rimbaud as well as two personal memoirs, My Lives and City Boy.  In 1982, he won the Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 1994, his biography of Genet won the National Book Critics’ Circle Award.  He is an officer of the French order of Arts and Letters, and he is now a professor of creative writing at Princeton University.  White’s new novel, Jack Holmes and His Friend, has just been released by Bloomsbury.

Hi, Edmund!  Thank you so much for doing this interview.  First, your books, particularly ones like A Boy’s Own Story, have meant so much to so many people.  To turn that around, is there particular feedback or commentary that you’ve received from readers that has meant the most to you? 

Often I’ve heard how that book helped someone come out—even people from entirely different backgrounds.  I remember an African who wrote me to say that he was just sixteen and his life was exactly like his.  That’s the astonishing thing about writing from the heart—you can reach someone of a different color from a different culture and epoch.

Congratulations on your new book, Jack Holmes and His Friend.  Could you tell our readers what you’d like them to know about this story?  Also, were there aspects of the book that made it particularly enjoyable or particularly difficult to write?

It is about the friendship between a straight man and a gay man, which is a common enough phenomenon in urban life but which has never been the main subject of a novel to my knowledge.  I was trying out a new way of writing using nothing but action and dialogue and avoiding lengthy description or meditation, my old way of writing.  I wanted to create a page-turner and some of my critics have been kind enough to say I did just that.

 I’ve read that your novels are often heavily autobiographical.  For example, both you and your character, Jack Holmes, went to the University of Michigan and studied Chinese.  When you created Jack was there anything you did to make him distinctly “other” from yourself?  If you were in his situation, where your most significant relationship is with a straight man, are there ways you might handle it differently than Jack?

It amused me to create a character quite unlike me and have him lead my life.  I think I got the idea from Nabokov’s Look at the Harlequins!  In other words, I was from the Midwest like Jack, I studied Chinese and he studies Chinese art.  I came to New York in 1962 and went to work as a journalist, as he does.  But I never fell in love with a straight man.  Jack is more handsome and more passive and less ambitious than me.  I had the pleasure of both imitation and invention.  I could imitate some of the backgrounds I knew intimately but invent new characters.  I suppose I would avoid falling in love with a straight man.  I’ve been hopelessly in love in my life, but at least it was with gay men.

If you don’t mind, let’s look at a passage from your book:

Jack didn’t think he was a nonconformist; he simply loved Will. If he could have magically turned himself into a girl whom Will would want to marry, he’d have done it without hesitation. He’d have converted to Catholicism, become a woman, borne Will’s many children, shopped for dresses at Peck and Peck, learned to cook Rice- A-Roni—where was the rebellion in any of that? Not that Jack was interested in being a woman. He’d never daydreamed about a sex change. He didn’t secretly experiment with makeup or window- shop for dresses or fold his towel into a turban and study his steamy reflection in the mirror…He liked women and had more female friends than male, but if the price of marrying Will had been banishing all other women from the face of the earth, he would gladly have paid it.

I suppose with over 90% of men identifying as straight, it’s part of the experience of most gay men to be attracted to someone utterly unavailable, and that will probably never change.  However, as shown in this passage, Jack’s feelings for Will are incredibly profound. What did you draw upon to create such longing?

We used to joke that so-and-so was so butch and so attractive that it would be worth it to live in a trailer with him and cook meatloaf for him every night.  I tend to fall in love very hard; in My Lives I talk about my crazy love for a guy in the chapter called “My Master.”  It wasn’t hard to invent the details necessary to flesh out Jack’s feelings for Will.

I won’t ask you to pick a favorite novel from among your titles, but when considering your entire body of fiction, are there characters that mean the most to you?  

I loved the character of Cora in Hotel de Dream and I was sad to say goodbye to her.

When you were a student beginning to hone your writing skills, were there authors or professors who stand out in your mind as people who encouraged you and inspired you to succeed?  Conversely, are there students you’ve taught whom you feel especially proud of?

Louise Erdrich, Mona Simpson, John Fox and Stephen McCauley were all students of mine who went on to publish great novels. A writer friend of mine, Alfred Corn, encouraged me when we both young.  I belonged to a writer’s group in the late 1970s called the Violet Quill that was very nurturing.

What makes you laugh?  Are there books or films you turn to again and again for their humor?

Henry Green’s Nothing is a book I’ve read ten times and that always makes me laugh.  I love Waugh and Nancy Mitford as well.

In California, they are instituting education about various minorities, their histories, and their contributions.  If you imagine a text book discussing your work (perhaps as an activist as well as a writer) fifty or a hundred years from now, what do you hope it would say?

I hope it would say that just by presenting the world with quirky, fully rounded gay characters we were already being daring and progressive. That we had no need to show positive role models—those can only be provided by life.

For more information about Edmund White and his books, please visit edmundwhite.com. 

Buy it now direct from Samhain Publishing.

Depth and subtlety in character are both essential for romances—indeed, for any story worth reading. Who can care about a caricature? And if I don’t care about a character, what’s the point in reading about him? Even worse is when you see unexplored potential, and that’s what made Astrid Amara’s Half Pass so tough to get through.

Recently unemployed Paul King has inherited Serenity Stables from his late aunt. His plan is to turn it around quickly, make a bucket-load of cash and go back to his old life in San Francisco. But the broken down property is a tough sell, so he’s stuck mucking out stables and wishing he were somewhere else—until Olympic horse trainer Estevan Souza comes to town to work with Tux, a million-dollar horse and Serenity Stables’ last salvation. But when Tux vanishes, Paul and Estevan are forced to put their heads together to solve the mystery. And build a relationship.

The main problem here isn’t so much the predictable plot or telegraphed solution as it is the broad strokes with which these characters are painted. That’s a particular shame in the case of Paul, who has so much potential—a stable owner with a horse phobia who loved his aunt but loathed her business. Estevan is merely a dark, mysterious, closeted figure. We get no sense of why he’s in love with Paul. He just is. Paul’s helpers around the stables are just that—helpers. We don’t know why they stay or what makes them tick.

But the broadest strokes of all are saved for Paul’s cousin Collin, who also lives in a house on the property. His first words to Paul (and the reader) are “Hello, fucker.” When you start a character out that angry, you can’t ratchet him up a few notches when the occasion calls for it. He becomes, once again, a caricature of hatred with some hastily scribbled explanatory notes as to the reason for their emnity.

I also found the lack of a sense of place a bit disturbing. There is no more picturesque place than a stable, and this one seems nearly antiseptic. It’s supposed to take place in Washington, drenched in the beauty of the Pacific Northwest. But that doesn’t come through on the page.

That said, if you’re looking for a quick, undemanding read, you could do worse. The equestrian angle is interesting and if you haven’t read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes short story, “Silver Blaze,” the mystery might even hold some surprises for you. The sex scene even works pretty well. But if you’re into motivation, dramatic tension, dynamic characters, and a setting that works…

…ride on, my friend. Ride on.

Reviewed by Jerry Wheeler

Buy it now direct from Bold Strokes Books

There’s nothing I love more than blending and melding genres to create something unique, and I really admire those authors who have the creative guts to do so. Jeffrey Ricker has invented a wonderful debut in Detours—part ghost story, part road trip, part romance, but entirely witty, irreverent and thoughtful.

Joel Patterson meets Philip while vacationing in London, but their beginning is interrupted by the ending of Joel’s mother, who suddenly dies of cancer. He quits his job in order to fulfill his mother’s last request to take the RV she and his father have never used cross country to an old family friend. Complicating factors? Joel’s high school friend, Lincoln, who invites himself along for the ride, not to mention his mother’s ghost—and for a dead woman, she has a lot to say.

Mashing these genres together should be difficult, but Ricker makes it look like a breeze. This is, in large part, due to his wonderful characters. Joel is hopelessly confused about life and love, but he’s so damn winning that you find yourself rooting for him from the get-go. And you know he’ll resolve his problems in spite of himself. It’s Mom who steals the show, however. By turns caustic and caring, she dispenses her indespensible advice as freely as her ethereal right grants her.

But as charming as those characters are, I found myself drawn to Joel’s father, who must rebuild his own life in much the same way Joel needs to, without the advantage of having a love offstage waiting for his cue. Poor guy gets the dog, Dudley, instead. Come to think of it, that’s not a bad deal.

The only character I found less than fulfilling was Philip, who makes an appearance at the beginning and then not again until the ending draws near. I understand the plot difficulties in bringing him in sooner, but I wish we’d gotten to spend more time together. However, that’s of little concern with such great scenes as Joel visiting his mother’s friends (and her romantic rival) Sylvia and Gerald. These high comic pieces are hysterical relief from the ineffable weirdness that is Lincoln, who may be good in bed but is lousy in life.

Detours is a great read from start to finish, full of delightful twists and inventive turns that lead you to a heart-tugging destination with no GPS required.

Just get on and ride.