Out in Print Queer Book Review

Holy Rollers – Rob Byrnes (Bold Strokes Books)

Jerry and Bill — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:00:00 GMT

I know Rob Byrnes from the annual Saints and Sinners conference in New Orleans and have found him to be a smart, witty conversationalist—you know, the kind of guy with his tongue tucked firmly in one cheek and a martini olive in the other. But I had not read any of his books. I was looking forward to Holy Rollers, which not only met but exceeded my expectations.

In this insanely funny caper novel, Grant Lambert and Chase LaMarca, small-time crooks as well as life partners, hear about seven million dollars of tithes in a safe located deep within the walls of The Virginia Cathedral of Love, a mega-church run by one Oscar Hurley and one Dennis Merribaugh. They gather a motley assortment of gay and lesbian crooks, choose a covenant-controlled suburban manse for a hideout and proceed to make their seven-million dollar dreams come true. Complicating factors include an ex-gay conference, an FBI investigation, a corrupt congressman and his gay aide, a twink with a penchant for see-through shirts, and a “Christianized” version of The Sound of Music.

As wildly divergent as these plot elements are, Byrnes makes them work brilliantly together. Religious right-wingers are an easy target for satire, but Byrnes’ shots are never cheap. One of my favorite bits is about Hurley’s office desk, a monstrously ugly piece of furniture fashioned from cypress, cedar and pine (the woods used in making the True Cross) called—naturally—The Desk of Christ, complete with a worn spot touched by parishoners to be closer to Christ. Can’t you see that in Newt’s office? But even the Desk of Christ has a role to play in the heist.

Byrnes works the plot angles for all he’s worth, milking laughs from the most unlikely of sources, and even his minor characters have bits of brilliance. My favorite is Tish Fielding, their nosy, Nazi-like neighbor in Old Stone Fence Posts Estates, who worships the covenants of the HOA like the parishoners do the huge stone (or, rather, concrete) cross outside the Virginia Cathedral of Love.

Laughs aside, Byrnes has a keen sense of pacing, a sharp eye for telling character details, and a great talent for the set-up. He builds a solid foundation of suspense, always placing that Holy Grail just outside the reach of his crooks and snatching it away whenever they get too close. Do they actually get the seven million? Well, yes. And no. I can’t say more for fear of spoiling Byrnes’ wonderfully written finale.

Holy Rollers is a laugh-out-loud, pee-your-pants funny caper story that will have you seeking out his other efforts as soon as you finish this. And smiling long after the last page has been turned.

Reviewed by Jerry Wheeler

Hot Head – Damon Suede (Dreamspinner Press)

Jerry and Bill — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:30:12 GMT

Buy it direct from Dreamspinner Press

Men in (and out of) uniforms have long been a staple of erotic fantasies, but the 9/11 tragedy upped the ante and made firemen … ahem … hot commodities, especially for calendars—each month a new, cut stud wearing parts of his turnout gear and wielding a strategically placed axe. Sure, it’s a cliché, but Damon Suede ups it yet again in his novel, Hot Head.

Griffin Muir is in love with his childhood best friend and fellow firefighter Dante Anastagio but has had to repress his feelings due to his failed marriage and their homophobic job. But when Dante runs into financial difficulties and decides to do porn at the HotHead site for a few extra dollars, Griff can’t keep from watching his j/o scene over and over. And when Dante urges Griff to shoot a scene with him for even more money, a decision must be made. Several, in fact.

The plot is somewhat predictable, but Suede’s writing makes the going worthwhile. In particular, both Griff and Dante are complex, interesting people—unsure of their own feelings but definite that they’re not gay. Or are they? Each wrestles with his emotions in different ways. Dante acts out and Griff internalizes. Either way, they make each other miserable even though they can’t stay away. Their job forces them to interact as does Dante’s family, who look on Griff as an adopted son.

At times, Griff’s misery and frustration gets a bit much, but just when it starts to wear thin, Suede changes things up by focusing on one of the two best minor characters in the book. First, there’s Alek, the Russian émigré who runs HotHead. He’s a pornographer with a conscience and knows what makes his website run smoothly. However, he treats his models with an unexpected sense of humanity, becoming more of a surrogate father and benefactor than an exploitative employer. Secondly, there’s Tommy—another firefighter and family man who Griff sees participating in a rough alley fuck outside a gay bar. Griff cannot see Tommy the same way after witnessing that incident, and the events that force Tommy out of his closet also cause Griff to begin his journey towards self-acceptance.

It would hardly be a spoiler to say that Suede gives the reader the HEA ending he builds to, even though it’s carried on a bit too far in the family dinner episode that closes the book. Part of me was totally satisfied by the ending but another part wanted a resolution that was less than perfect because life is pretty messy and things don’t always go as expected. Either way, the journey is more important than the destination, and Suede has fashioned a smartly written, deftly plotted romance that will make you smile. And the sex scenes are definitely hot.

But what else would you expect from firefighters?

Reviewed by Jerry Wheeler

Queer Fish: An Eclectic Anthology of Gay Fiction – Margarita Bezdomnya, Rose Mambert, eds. (Pink Narcissus Press)

Jerry and Bill — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:00:00 GMT

Buy from direct from Pink Narcissus Press

I’ve been doing reviews of anthologies for some time now and I’m always struck by how much creative talent is out there. The way queer minds work make me proud of our accomplishments and I’m always finding myself in awe of the originality that comes forth. (I use the word queer for any GLBTQ individual and our allies who use their imagination and creativity to help promote queer publishing and our voices). Queer Fish is one of those rare collections that have simply left me amazed.

Everyone associated with this anthology deserves praise, from the nineteen authors to the two editors and especially Pink Narcissus Press. While I would like to talk in great lengths about each of the stories, it would make this review much too long, so I will limit the review to a few of my favorites and let the readers decide for themselves which of the stories are among their top picks.

The Song by Rob Rosen was such a surprise for me. Think Pirates of the Caribbean meets a male version of the Little Mermaid, a fairy tale type plot and add in a bit of horror and you’ve got yourself a fantastic story. Only Rob could combine so many genres into one story and come out with a piece of magic.

Mike Dies at the End (A Parody) by W2 is another story that just wouldn’t let me go. It’s fun, it’s quirky and very well written. I don’t want to say too much, as you just have to read the story to get the full picture, but it’s a unique parody on ghosts and the psychic abilities that are passed down through the most unusual way – it’s sexually transmitted. My only problem with the story is that it wasn’t long enough. The characters are so vivid and there is so much to tell, that it could easily have been a novella or even a full-length novel. W2 is you read this, give the readers more. Please.

Other treats one can find in this anthology include the somewhat creepy and yet beautifully done story by Nathanial Fuller, “Welcome to Anteaterland,” the story will linger well after you read the last word. “The Zombisagger” by Colleen Chen is by far the most bizarre story in the collection, but this statement by no means is an indication of poor quality. On the contrary, it is beautifully crafted, and as with Fuller’s story, it won’t want to let you go.

If you’re looking for an anthology where you won’t be disappointed in any of the stories in the collection, Queer Fish is for you. There isn’t one story that shouldn’t be here and the wide range of voices, talents, stories, and genres will make you proud to display it on your bookcase.

Reviewed by William Holden

Backwoods – Natty Soltesz (Queer Mojo)

Jerry and Bill — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:14:00 GMT

Buy it now from Rebel Satori Press.

I have been reading gay erotica since I was old enough for it to matter and writing and/or editing it for the last ten years. Frankly at this stage of the game for me, it’s less about the sex and more about the set-up; less about cock and more about character. But I have to say, Natty Soltesz’ Queer Mojo release Backwoods bypassed my cerebral instincts and went straight to my lap.

This fine collection of fuck stories takes place in fictional Groom, PA at various locations throughout the town. Not all the pieces share the same characters, but some appear in more than one story (like Michael Graves’ excellent Dirty One). And, also like the Graves book, the town is another character rather than simply the setting. Nowhere is this better embodied than the opener, “The Train,” which sees a masturbating conductor guiding his steel steed through the small burg:

“ The train tracks, though, they’ve been there forever. They’re

part of the landscape. Most of these towns are built from the, not

the other way around. So the train runs behind things—past

backyards and back doors and on through the woods’ a town’s

hidden places and secret spots.”

Among Groom’s many secret spots is the residence of an out gay couple and the object of public scorn among the population. In the two-part “Homo Hut” that bookends the rest of the stories, Randy and his husband Dom have all manner of sex with both single and married guys as well as the young thug Randy catches defacing their house with a can of spray paint. There’s also gym sex, parked car sex, teen circle jerks (complete with come-covered cookies), treehouse sex, teacher-student sex, father-son sex, and brother-in-law sex.

Cliches? Well, yes. But Soltesz embraces and inhabits them so fully, with such lustful wonder and horny detail that he makes them new again. You’re halfway through the scene before you realize that you’ve seen this done before—though rarely so well done. He manages to defibrillate the sexual heart of these worn devices and send the blood flowing straight to the readers’ genitalia.

However, Soltesz’ talents are many. As one of my favorite pieces, “The Opera House,” proves, he can also create wonderful characters. In this story, ostensibly straight roommates Cody and Britt begin a sexual relationship by “helping each other out,” soon breaking all their taboos as they graduate to oral and, finally, anal play. After all, it’s just sex. Or is it? Cody finds out how emotion can creep into a strictly good-time relationship. And ruin it.

Backwoods is a hot read—made even hotter by Michael Kirwan’s great illustrations. Altogether, it’s a wonderfully well-stuffed package. I can’t believe I just typed that.

Yes, I can…

Reviewed by Jerry Wheeler

A Conversation with Jeanne Cordova By Jerry L. Wheeler

Jerry and Bill — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:48:00 GMT

Writer/activist Jeanne Cordova contributions to LGBT culture are both profound and foundational. From her work at The Lesbian Tide and the Los Angeles Free Press to her ceaseless organizing for change, her outspoken manner has challenged many institutions—all for the better. She recently shared some of her thoughts with us on her new book, When We Were Outlaws, as well as the current state of LGBT activism.

JW: Thanks for agreeing to do this interview, Jeanne.

JC: Thanks for putting me through this rigorous experience. I’ve never been asked most of these questions.

JW: As an activist yourself, what’s your take on the Occupy movement?

JC: The concept of the Occupy movement is the single most radical and potentially the most important activism of this decade. I’ve been urging young queer activists to get involved, to earn your stripes, in this movement because the issue of income inequality and the loss of democracy in America touches every queer life. If the right continues their take over of every equal or good about our society, we queers will be the first to be thrown under the bus by the oligarchy of greed=straight=oppression of all.

JW: How do you see the state of LGBT activism today?

JC: After decades of radical struggle, LGBT activism today has moved into the “consolidation” phase of a social movement where the grass roots are mostly called upon to write checks to the organizations composing Gay Incorporated as they work within the system to lobby our way into full equality.

JW: Is gay marriage the best issue for the movement or are other agenda items more important?

JC: To keep a social movement healthy means it needs to stay broad based with 3 or 4 issues leading our agenda. As Saul Alinsky noted in his famous “Rules for Radicals,” once a movement becomes single-issued it often stalls out when that issue stalls, or activists for whom that issue is not so urgent leave the movement. I believe the LBGTQ movement should be politically focused on anti-gay discrimination laws which affect jobs and housing in Middle America, where there is no such thing as equality. Gender justice struggles are also a logical next step for LGBT activists and organizers. And building viable coalitions with people of color and their issues also broadens the base and reach of LGBT activism.

JW: Do social networking sites like Facebook help activist movements or do they hinder them by rendering face to face meetings less necessary?

JC: I think they do both, depending on the global milieu one is trying to forge a movement in. For lots of cultural reasons FB/twitter/etc. seemed to work extremely well in the Middle East. They work very well as an underground surprise tool in regimes which don’t allow freedom of assembly or speech. And yet, I’ve recently been butch organizing in two settings—one in which the leadership depended heavily on social media, and another whose steering committee met regularly face-to-face. The latter group was able to establish deeper and clearer goals and relationship trust. The former group had a hard time trusting or building in new members. It became very innnzy. After an organization’s core infrastructure and first layer of leadership is formed, social media is a great tool for “calling in the troops” to a demo, event, or meeting. Yet FB organizing alone has many limits. It is no substitute for the depth of conversation or the slow working out of goals and interpersonal trust that a leadership group needs to establish to carry out a project. We activists seem to be trying to work out how to use these new social media tools; when and where are they helpful? What are their limits and liabilities? Consensus building is more enhanced when individuals sit in a circle and see the facial expressions, tone, and politics of each other. Obviously, this is a good subject for a book, one with an international focus. I wonder what Saul Alinsky’s take on how to use social media for community organizing would be?

JW: There seems to have always been, as typified by your relationship with Morris Kight (fellow activist and founder of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center—ed.), a schism between gay men and lesbians—where do you think this comes from, and how can it be overcome?

JC: The once vast differences between gay men and lesbians was, and still is, based on the fact that most men and most women are fundamentally as different as Mars and Venus. As such, we lesbian women and gay men face all the problems due to the difference in our nature as women and men. In the 1950’s, as we can see from the TV shows Pan Am and Mad Men, men and women were raised to be very different, with women getting the brunt of male chauvinism and sexism. The men of my father’s generation were, in their relationship to women, sexist pigs. Yet today’s men are largely the sons of feminist and/or independent women. They have grown up viewing women as largely equal. With the passing generations, men and women have become more and more integrated. Today high-schoolers run in packs peopled by both genders (as well as gender-benders). Today’s men are FAR less sexist by nature than men of my generation. Today’s women take for granted their equal place in college, the boardroom, co-parentage, and friendship between the sexes. There is far less basis for lesbian separatist lifestyles among people between 15 and 40 years old. (Although some women, and some men, still chose to live separately for philosophical, religious, and other reasons.) The schism between gay men and lesbians is much less deep and wide today. However, our differences as men—to whom say, sexual issues are critical—and women to whom child raising issues are paramount, will remain as long as the societal roles of men and women remain different. But, they are disappearing in Western societies. The so called “war on terror” I believe is really a war about the position of women in advanced societies vs. the role of women in more tribal traditional societies. Men will never be the first to extend freedom to women. No one gives power away. Women have to take it, as do people of color in a systemically racist society.

JW: As a journalist raised on typewriters and paste-up, how do you feel about the impending death of print media? Will you miss the romance or have you already embraced the new technology?

JC: I don’t think all print media is dead. It will live on, like the radio after TV, but be a much less dominant form. I think the younger generations will place more value on it as they age and see & feel the pleasure of it. I love the new technology, it does many things print cannot do, and faster, and more dispersive. Print media will remain for those who seek an in depth knowledge of selected educative subjects.

JW: The front cover photo of you on When We Were Outlaws is very emblematic of both you and the times—do you recall the circumstances under which it was taken and what you were thinking of at the time?

JC: I was 23 years old and at the first lesbian conference of which I was a core organizer. It was the West Coast Gay Women’s Conference, held at MCC Los Angeles in 1971. Seven hundred women came, many of them “old gay” and just as many of the “new gay” lesbian feminists type. Leaning against the rail capturing a moment between solving logistic problems, I was half brooding—“What’s the next thing that might go wrong that I should anticipate? Will that room be big enough, will the mikes work? And half dazed with shock and awe, like, OMG where had all these hundreds of dykes come from, and how big, really, was our movement? What was its future?

JW: Were there times during the writing of the details of your relationships with Rachel and BeJo where you thought you might be going too far and getting too personal?

JC: Yeah sure, there were lots of times when I thought; Oh shit, I hope my father will die before my mother feels compelled to read him this book? (He did die, at 89, a year before it came out). Do I have the right to tell the world this piece of truth about him?

And with BeJo, I was shocked that she didn’t demand to see it as I wrote it, or ask me to make changes as she did read parts of it. I was reminded of how deep and loyal friendship can grow after 40 years. Bejo and I are still close friends.

With regard to Rachel, I asked her many times to read parts of the manuscript. I wondered if she’d ask me to at least delete the third sex scene, the most vulnerable one. I kept telling her I was getting personal, including sex scenes. She seemed to want me to give her a pseudonym, which I did, due to the intimacy. And it was important to her that I said in the Endnotes that she did choose to stop drinking, went to rehab and got sober. But she kept saying, “I’ll read it when you are finished with the book.” To my knowledge she has not read it at all, even now. I have no explanation for this, only gratitude that these two women allowed and encouraged me to write this book.

As for “going too far” with myself, yes, there were times when I wanted to cut certain scenes, like the chapter “The Rage of all Butches” that included behavior I wasn’t proud of and didn’t want out there in print. But I felt I couldn’t be half-honest and tell the brave things I did and yet leave out my sins. That wouldn’t be right, especially in a memoir. Most of all I worried about hurting my mother who did so much to keep her kids alive and on-course. This was the hardest fear to overcome. Finally I decided my mother was one tough woman who I should assume has faced her husband’s and her daughter’s flaws, and would therefore take this too in her own stride. I am proud of her; she overcame my ambiguity and insisted I give her my book at the family Christmas party last month. Besides obsessing about what my mother would think, I had the unusual privilege of being in a 20 year relationship with a woman, also a writer, who had a real arduous 10 years watching me write in such detail about a former lover. We lesbians are always in our lover's business big time. I don't think many spouses would put up with another lover in their partner's lives for so long. It was a real brain twister, heaps of dissonance, for me, for her, for our marriage. Yes, plenty of screaming, "How could you!" and "I will not read or edit THOSE (love scenes) pages." Especially since my partner was intimately involved as my research editor for the politics. So I feel very lucky, not to mention loved, that she respected my writing and found ways to separate our lives from my life in writing this memoir. May all writers be so blessed!

JW: What do you most want people to take away from When We Were Outlaws?

JC: I want the young kids to know they CAN be activists. That’s it a noble, exciting, growth-filled ‘career path.’ I want other writers to overcome their doubts and find the courage to just DO it. I wanted to honor other butch women through my writing. Most of all I wanted to tell the legacy of lesbian feminism and to show that the boomer women were, in Brokaw’s terminology, “the courageous generation.”

Many thanks to Jeanne Cordova for her honesty and her tireless work. More information can be found at: www.jeannecordova.com. You can purchase When We Were Outlaws from Spinsters Ink, Amazon, or Barnes and Nobel.

Enter Oblivion – C.M. Harris (Casperian Books)

Jerry and Bill — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:00:00 GMT

Buy it direct from Casperian Books.

Unique characters can transform a thin, shopworn plot into a thing of beauty, elevating a book from pedestrian to sublime with every beat of their hearts. Add to that a culturally significant setting and perfect dialogue that sounds spoken and not written, and you have a book to be reckoned with—like C.M. Harris’ Enter Oblivion.

Vince Saviglio, a small-time gangster (not gangsta) wanna-be from Brooklyn, finds himself in London, circa 1980, unsure if he wants to continue life as a hoodlum boxer, a rent boy or a rock star. He falls in with a crowd of equally undecided fellows, including a drag queen named Jezebel, a couple named Nigel and John, and the improbably named Jik O’Blivion, a titled glam-David Bowie-type pop star Just the kind of man Vince, just finding his inner queer, could fall in love with. And does.

Harris has two marvelous characters in Vince and Jik, and their romantic dance is dizzying—replete with mixed signals, crossed intents and aborted couplings. Both are stoic and stubborn, refusing to admit their attraction no matter how evident it is to their friends. Like it or not, they’re there for each other, through knife fights with skinhead bullies, musical failures and triumphs, and gay bar punch-ups. It takes the death of a friend to actually bring them together, and even then you’re wondering when the explosion will come to rip them apart again.

As mentioned before, the plot is thin on twists and turns, but it’s as true and straightforward as life gets. Rather than pushing characters through a set of circumstances, Harris gets them onstage and lets them live and breathe, their drama coming naturally from their situations instead of external forces. A beautifully paced book, the story doesn’t drag or falter and never sounds anything less than true. The dialogue is brilliant, so steeped in character one hardly needed any attribution to know who was speaking. And nearly as well done were the passages about the music. Harris seems as knowledgeable about Jik’s brand of glam pop as she is about Vince’s early punk style, and she writes about both with equal ease.

The only problem with the book was an episode that took Vince back to Brooklyn for a short time. I understand why Harris had to get him out of the West End for a bit, but his departure seemed sudden and poorly motivated, raising more questions about his past than it answered.

That small misstep aside, Enter Oblivion is a solid, highly entertaining read that will have you wanting more before you even reach the end.

Review by Jerry Wheeler

Boneyard – Stephen Beachy (Verse Chorus Press)

Jerry and Bill — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:00:00 GMT

Buy it direct from Verse Chorus Press.

My family used to own land in Gettysburg, PA. Weekends we’d go up to see the undeveloped land, in addition to seeing the various Civil War memorials. On these trips we would see the Pennsylvania Dutch. The bearded, stoic men in their buggies would clop alongside our station wagon, silent and mysterious. We’d go to a market and see the Amish women, quiet madonnas in homespun dress, selling apple butter and weird faceless dolls. I was curious about them. We only saw the surface—the quilts, shoofly pie. There was a romance about the Amish—a simple folk out of time in our jaded world. And yet like all human beings, they must have the neuroses—shadow-selves. Beachy novel ‘boneyard’ sets out to explore the collective subconscious of modern Amish/Mennonite life through the visionary writings of a precocious child.

The conceit of the novel is that Beachy, doing research on the horrific Nickel Mines murders (where a deranged man killed nine Amish girls) met Jake Yoder, a young aspiring writer in the sixth grade who lives among the Amish. Beachy pieces together a manuscript that Jake has decided to burn, after Jake deems the short stories within to be evil.

Jake’s stories are filled with a kind of luminous prose that at times recall the prose poems of Rimbaud. Through this distorted mirror, we glimpse bits and pieces of Yoder’s life, like the suicide of his mother, the murders at Nickel Mines. These events are disguised, with recurrent characters and images, such as an ethereal blonde girl that could be Jake’s sister or mother, or an abusive man who kidnaps one of Jake’s characters. These tales are flavored and interspersed with surrealistic journeys across South American pampas, mystical transformations, lost children, and imagined lives—most notably, as an alternative rock star. Simultaneously, Beachy obsessively annotates the text in discursive footnotes that reference everything from the lives of Anabaptist saints, to obscure Latin American authors to Freudian and Jungian psychology. His editor, Judith, adds her own footnotes—she is dubious of the existence of Jake and thinks that the child is Beachy’s alter-ego. There is also yet another subtext/layer: Beachy comes from an Amish heritage himself, and also famously exposed one of the 2000s great literary hoaxes (see J.T. Leroy).

The description of this novel sounds daunting. It’s meta-textual, labyrinthine, and obscure. It’s also funny—watching Beachy and his editor bicker. The “found” novel portions begin to corrode from the writings of a preternatural child into the ramblings of a more seasoned novelist. (A Mennonite sixth grader, for instance, probably could not write about an avant garde nihilist punk band in San Francisco. Or refer to author Clarice Lispector). Jake starts out ostensibly pure but gradually becomes a disaffected gay youth, the kind that Dennis Cooper writes about in his oeuvre.

It’s a beautiful mess of a book that explores alienation, childhood and authorship itself, while delving into both the gay and Amish psyche. It’s a book that belongs on the same shelf with Steve Erickson or Anna Kavan—a book that moves with dream-logic.

A note must be made about the book as an object. In addition to having a polyphony of font styles and footnotes, it is decorated with images of Christian martyrs. The mysterious cover art reflects the the dark beauty within in the pages. ‘Boneyard’ isn’t an easy read, but it’s a rewarding one. It is highly recommend for adventurous readers and lovers of experimental or surrealistic fiction.

Review by Craig Laurance Gidney

Settling the Score – Eden Winters (Torquere Press)

Jerry and Bill — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:00:00 GMT

Buy it direct from Torquere Press

Nothing is more fictionally fun than a good revenge scenario—of course, the set-up has to be just right. The villain must be foul, the hero above reproach, and the plan workable. And it doesn’t hurt if there’s a healthy dollop of boy-meets-boy, boy-loses-boy, and boy-gets-boy-back. Toss in some makeover magic, and you have Eden Winters’ Settling the Score.

Small-town garage mechanic Joey Nichols has been publicly outed and dumped by Riker, his equally small-town boyfriend who is taking Hollywood by storm, but Joey’s too busy dealing with his homophobic neighbors to think about getting back at him. Not so Troy Steele, whose novel provided the screenplay for Riker’s fame. In fact, Joey’s story is similar to the book Troy’s currently writing. Troy invites Joey to Hollywood for a little polishing, a little research, and a lot of revenge. For both of them.

If all this sounds like a bunch of hackneyed elements thrown against the wall…well, it is. But a suprising number of them not only stick, but work quite well together. Its success is partly due to Winters’ pacing, which takes you through the plot quickly enough to miss the patchwork, but mainly this works because of character. Both Joey Nichols and Troy Steele are good-ole-boys who have those rural values in common, despite their current disparity in wealth and knowledge of city ways. Winters works this angle for all its worth, coming up aces as the reader roots for them as a couple.

And the villains are sufficiently nasty. Riker is a lazy opportunist, as mean-spirited as his sugar daddy, Ian (who is the director of Riker’s summer blockbuster as well as Troy Steele’s ex). There is only one confrontation between the two couples, and the book-length buildup is more than rewarded. It’s a corker—satisfactory on all levels.

Much of the book takes place in rural locales in Georgia and South Carolina, but unfortunately you’d never know it. A better sense of place would have helped us understand Troy and his roots and made a firmer connection to his burgeoning relationship with Joey. This lack is offset, however, by Winters’ skill with dialogue and character. Joey’s family, for instance, come off as endearingly quirky instead of annoying caricatures, which they could easily have slipped into.

Subsequent editions, however, should lose the back cover blurb. I don’t usually mention them, but this one is particularly clumsy and confusing and doesn’t serve the book well. Despite that, this is a fun, breezy read that has more than a few chuckles and “awwww” moments.

Just don’t read the back cover.

Reviewed by Jerry Wheeler

Awake Unto Me – Kathleen Knowles (Bold Strokes Books)

Jerry and Bill — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 09:00:00 GMT

Buy it direct from Bold Strokes Books

One of the greatest pleasures reading offers is that wonderful feeling of being transported into another time; another world that you can’t wait to get back to. Even better is when that feeling comes on you unexpectedly, and you’re hooked by page ten—totally lost to the ride. Kathleen Knowles’ accomplished debut, Awake Unto Me, is just such a wonderful time machine.

Kerry O’Shea is a rough and tumble denizen of the unsavory Barbary Coast, daughter of a whore and a father who “crimps” (or shanghais) unwary sailors for a living. Beth Hammond is a respectable shopkeeper’s daughter on the better side of the tracks. They do, however, have Dr. Addison Grant in common. Grant and O’Shea’s father ran a lucrative card sharping scam for a while, putting Grant through medical school. Grant, in turn, promises to take care of Kerry should something happen to her father—and it does. Beth turns to nursing, her supervising doctor being Dr. Grant. Circumstances force the girls to share a room in Dr. Grant’s house, and of course, love blooms between them.

Knowles, a San Francisco resident, gives Awake Unto Me a wonderful sense of place—richly detailed and immensely transportative. But place means nothing without people, and Knowles is just as talented at creating characters. Her Kerry O’Shea is tough, vulnerable, tenacious and loving. Cheeky and determined, she gets what she wants—from a cook’s job (unheard of for a woman) in a swanky hotel to the love of Beth Hammond.

And she certainly has some obstacles to overcome there. Beth is a dedicated nurse with an incident in her past that has prevented her sexual self from developing. However, she works hard to overcome her difficulties so she may fully embrace her relationship with Kerry. The mostly welcoming space in Dr. Grant’s household allows the women this freedom. I say ‘mostly’ because of Dr. Grant’s disapproving wife, Laura, who throws some interesting hurdles in their way. Grant, however, is a forward-thinking man. He has an inkling of what is going on with Kerry and Beth and, though he doesn’t understand it, he refuses to stand in the way of their happiness.

Knowles’ prose is direct and to-the-point, nothing wasted or off target, which is why her characters are so fully fleshed. The smallest details emphasize a trait or expose a layer, and those details are well-chosen indeed. Awake Unto Me is a family album snapshot of two women standing in front of a middle-class Victorian house, close to each other (but not too close), wearing secret smiles that both expose and mask their true relationship to each other. Smiles of satisfaction and pride in achieving the goals they set for themselves. Like pioneers.

Real pioneers.

Reviewed by Jerry Wheeler

Dancing With the Tide – Neil Plakcy (Loose ID)

Jerry and Bill — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 09:00:00 GMT

Buy it direct from Loose ID

Exotic locales and Neil Plakcy go hand in hand. From his Mahu series, featuring gay homicide detective Kimo Kanapa’aka, to the Tunisian setting of his Have Body Will Guard series, Plakcy loves sunny climates. And along with the exotica comes romantic erotica. Would his work be quite as hot if it were set in, say Cleveland? In the winter? We’ll probably never know.

Dancing With the Tide, the second of his bodyguard series, sees former SEAL Liam McCullough and his partner in business and love, Aidan Greene, guarding the body of one Karif al-Fulan, a young Arabian pop star whose recent coming out has prompted a fatwah to be issued against him, calling for his death. But Liam and Aidan also find their relationship tested by Karif’s attentions to both of them. And what of Karif’s previous dealings with a Palestinian politician? Is he as innocent as he seems? Only Liam and Aidan can find out.

Dancing With the Tide is of a piece with Plakcy’s previous outing with his two bodyguards, Three Wrong Turns in the Desert. The relationship between Liam and Aidan is deepened here, taking on a tentative aspect. They disagree, they quibble over procedural matters on the job, they get jealous and sulk, they bait each other—but in the end, they always kiss and make up. Still, there’s a delicious tension between them that always keeps the reader guessing.

Karif is also well-drawn, coming off as a spoiled child one minute and a serious artist the next. Come to think of it, that could be the portrait of almost any celebrity. Liam and Aidan aside, Karif does have one weak spot, and that’s Gavin—an expat Brit boy who blows him in an alleyway. Gavin is also an interesting minor character, coming from the mean streets of London, willing to stay with Karif and his bodyguards in the gated compound his record company is paying for to keep him safe.

I do wish, however, that Dancing With the Tide had a bit more local flavor. We get some cultural references, but I never really feel like I’m there. And going along with that, Karif’s credibility as an artist might have benefited with some nuts-and-bolts detailing of his creative process. We get a bit of it—the title of the book is also the title of a song Karif writes—but not enough to think of him as an artist instead of a shallow boy.

But beyond those minor points, Plakcy has served up a great second helping with this mystery. It’s a quick, engaging read that will have you anticipating a third volume. Maybe set in Cleveland.

Or not.

Reviewed by Jerry Wheeler

A Conversation with Rob Byrnes by Gavin Atlas

Jerry and Bill — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 09:59:00 GMT

Rob Byrnes is the author of five novels including the brand new release, Holy Rollers (Bold Strokes Books), which features gay criminals, Grant Lambert and Chase LaMarca. Rob is originally from Rochester, New York and now lives with his partner in West New York, New Jersey where he has a view of the Manhattan skyline and the occasional jet plane that lands in the Hudson River.

Hi, Rob. First, from your books, your blog, and your Facebook posts, I have gathered enough evidence to know for a fact that you’re hysterically funny. What early influences helped form your sense of humor? Who or what (TV shows? Films?) do you find hysterical?

I tell you this at the risk of sounding a bit too precocious, but, when I was growing up, I was a huge fan of silent comedians. Especially Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. To the extent my characters seem to always be in a “Huh? What? This is happening to me?” mode, those pioneers probably get some credit. Or blame. Your choice.

These days, I have nothing against TV or film – I will argue any day that some of the sharpest contemporary writing is on the small screen, and I only stopped going to movies when the VCR and DVD brainwashed people into thinking the theater was their living room – but I’ve fallen away from pop culture. Still, my tastes in comedy are eclectic and erratic: loved Mel Brooks’s “The Producers” and “Young Frankenstein;” despise many of his other films. Love the knife-sharp repartee of “All About Eve;” watch the low-brow “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” at least once a year. Hell, I’m even one of the last people standing who laughs out loud at “Desperate Housewives”… although maybe not when the writers want me to laugh.

And if I’m ever paralyzed and can do nothing but watch TV from a hospital bed for the rest of my life, bring me DVDs of every episode of “The Match Game” and “Green Acres” – and a case of white wine – and I think I’ll be a pretty content paralyzed-in-a-hospital-bed kind of guy.

Congratulations on your new book! Could you tell us what you’d like readers to know about Holy Rollers and about your characters, Grant and Chase?

Grant and Chase are a very committed couple with all the occasional baggage that comes with that. But in addition to a bed, they also share a vocation: they’re criminals. Not necessarily competent criminals, but they get by.

In Holy Rollers, they learn about seven million dollars stashed in the safe of a right-wing mega-church in Virginia, and decide that money should be theirs. Of course, complications ensue.

What do you enjoy about taking characters who should, technically, be the bad guys (since they’re criminals) and making them the good guys? What kinds of reader reactions have you gotten about Grant and Chase?

I’m glad you mentioned that Grant and Chase are technically bad guys, because sometimes book publicists and marketing people skip over that. They aren’t fun-loving scamps; they’re men who’ll steal your laptop or car – ideally both – without a second thought or a pang of conscience. If your Christmas presents are in the trunk of the car, all the better. They can put the loot on eBay!

I’ve long been a huge fan of Donald E. Westlake’s “Dortmunder” crime caper series and wanted to put a gay spin on the genre with my fourth book, Straight Lies, which introduced Grant and Chase. The key to making it work – and making the reader root for the criminals – is to make their adversaries even more heinous than they are. In Straight Lies, my criminals were up against a manipulative actor, a sleazy tabloid editor, and a pedophile cop; in Holy Rollers, they do battle with the leaders of the mega-church and officious suburban neighbors. By comparison, they become the good guys. If Grant and Chase were stealing from average people, they’d be unsympathetic.

I’ve been gratified by the reaction of readers, who appreciate both the gay twist on the crime caper genre and the fact that Chase, Grant and their gang are decidedly not the types of people typically found in gay literature. They live in glamour-free neighborhoods, scrape by financially, suffer from an overload of bad luck… oh, and they steal for a living.

If Grant and Chase stole your car, and they checked your radio pre-sets, your glove apartment, your trunk, and so forth, what conclusions do you think they’d come to about you?

I’m sure they’d discover I’m very disorganized and eclectic, and I’d like to think they’d appreciate that. All the way to the chop-shop.

Some of the last names of your characters, like Lambert or Cochrane, sound rather familiar. Do you use the names of your friends mostly just for fun or does it help you anchor your characters in some way? What are some of the reactions you’ve gotten from friends when they learn about the characters that share their last names?

As you know, writing can be a lonely activity. To entertain myself and readers, I’ve borrowed the names of many friends over the years. In the case of the writers whose names I’ve appropriated, it’s also my way of paying tribute. That said, when I see Grant Lambert in my head, he looks nothing like the novelist Timothy J. Lambert; and Lisa Cochrane – the wealthy lesbian realtor who sidelines in crime for the thrills – isn’t the writer Becky Cochrane.

Giving a character a name like “Mrs. Jarvis” or “Mr. Scribner” – to use two examples from Holy Rollers – does help bring them to life in my head. I’m not a big believer in physical descriptions – for the most part, I try to write so the reader can conjure up his or her own mental image – but it makes it much easier for me to create a character when I have a model.

I’ve also created an alternative reality in which many characters cross over from book to book. For example, gay FBI Agent Patrick Waverly appears in Holy Rollers, and was also a character in my first novel, The Night We Met. Two characters – publisher David Carlyle and mystery author Margaret Campbell – have managed to work their way into all five of my novels, although sometimes only in passing.

What can I say? It keeps me amused.

I lived in Virginia for six years and had Eric Cantor as my congressman, so I know can be a crummy place to be gay or liberal. But what’s your take on the state, and what led you to choose it as the setting for the Cathedral of Love in Holy Rollers?

For the past 16 years, my life has been centered around Manhattan, so that’s what I tend to write about. Still, I have seen a little bit more of the world than that, and – really – my characters needed to get out more. Virginia was a good fit because I know it. For years before he moved to New York, my partner lived in Arlington, and my brother has a home in Loudon County. It was also the perfect location for a mega-church.

And if I joke about a proliferation of McMansions and Walmarts in Northern Virginia, it’s done with affection. I actually like what I’ve seen of Virginia. Of course, I don’t have to live there…

What parts of the writing process do you find the easiest or, perhaps, the least excruciating? And which parts drive you craziest?

Here’s where a great Dorothy Parker quote is useful: “I hate writing. I love having written.” And I seriously hate almost everything about the act of writing. I hate the blank screen in front of you; I hate the typing; I hate the mental blocks; I hate the discipline… or, in my case, lack thereof. I know a writer isn’t supposed to admit these things, but there you have it.

Obviously, I find some pleasure in the process, though, because no one has a gun to my head… and the financial rewards are hardly keeping me in this business. I enjoy the exhausted feeling at the end of a productive weekend when I’ve made real progress. I love that “aha” moment when I’ve worked through a plot point that seemed unsolvable. I love that moment when you’re surprised by your own creativity. And as much as I loathe writing the first draft, I actually sort of enjoy the revision process.

Every time I finish a manuscript I tell myself, “Never again.” And then that inner voice starts nagging me…

Which books have you read recently (or not so recently) would you recommend? Are there any books you’re looking forward to?

I should take a pass on this question, because I could list recommendations for hours and not scratch the surface. I’m also trying to write my next novel – staring at the blank screen, thinking of Dorothy Parker – so I’ve fallen a bit behind in my reading. But I’m very happy to tout my friend Jeffrey Ricker’s wonderful first novel, Detours, and anything by Greg Herren and Josh Aterovis. I recently read with Michael Graves (Dirty One) and Laurie Weeks (Zipper Mouth), and can’t wait to dive into their books.

For readers who are interested in the crime caper genre, I’d also recommend devouring the Westlake series. He passed away a few years ago, so there won’t be anymore. But what he left behind is wonderful.

I sometimes ask interviewees what they would choose if a genie granted them a wish, but in honor of Grant and Chase, let’s say you get a criminal genie. (He wears prison stripes.) He says he has the power to let you get away with a high stakes crime scot-free. Of course, you can turn him down, but what capers might you ponder?

I’d like to steal the next Michael Thomas Ford manuscript, please!

If there’s an interview question that you’ve always wanted to be asked, could you tell us what it is (and answer it, too)?

Q: Are you really as arrogant and self-involved as you seem online?

A: I’m sorry, were you talking to me?

Thanks very much, Rob!

Keep up with Rob at http://www.robbyrnes.net/

My Brother and His Brother – Hakan Lindquist (Bruno Gmunder)

Jerry and Bill — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 08:41:00 GMT

Buy it now from TLA

I only know Bruno Gmunder’s output from those marvelously expensive coffee-table books of photography. Naked men in compromising positions always have a place in my living room, two-dimensional or otherwise. However, this Swedish novel is a little gem that deserves as much attention as Gmunder’s more skinworthy projects.

Jonas is a teenager intrigued by the presence of Paul, an older brother who died before Jonas was born. His investigation leads him to the discovery of a diary detailing Paul’s relationship with Petr, a Czech immigrant Paul met in school. Their love affair as well as some startling revelations about an older family friend named Daniel brings Jonas closer to his own family as well as the brother he never met.

This deceptively simple and relatively short book is different from others I’ve read with similar plots in that Jonas does not use his brother’s sexuality to put his own into context. There is no indication here that Jonas is himself gay. Nor is he judgmental about Paul and Petr. He is curious about the brother he will never know, but his curiosity never becomes prurient. This seemingly small difference brings a refreshing objectivity to the situation and allows the reader to focus more on Jonas’ search and how he absorbs that information.

Jonas is fully realized as a character and even his parents become multi-dimensional—quite an achievement considering how sparely they’re drawn and how innocuous their conversations seem. The in-depth conversations are reserved for Daniel, a friend of Jonas’ mother. Only Daniel, who is gay and was Paul’s confidante, can unlock that part of Paul for Jonas. Although his version of the story is a bit self-serving, enough solid facts remain for Jonas to piece together what actually happened between Daniel and Paul as well as how his affair with Petr progressed.

The symmetrical storyteller in me wants Jonas’ parents to have this information, and I would have relished a scene in which he tells them what he’s found out. But perhaps symmetry would not work in this case. Jonas’ search is so personal and so private that keeping the result to himself is only natural. Revealing them might change Sara and Stefan’s perception of their late son, which is not his aim. One gets the feeling Jonas will take what he has learned to his own grave. An atmospheric and interesting read, My Brother and His Brother is successful on all levels—as art and as entertainment.

And it’ll even look good on your coffee table.

Reviewed by Jerry Wheeler

Southern Fried – Rob Rosen (MLR Press)

Jerry and Bill — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 08:00:00 GMT

Buy it now direct from MLR Press.

You can take the boy out of the South, but you evidently can’t take the South out of the boy. After dalliances in San Francisco (Sparkle), Hawaii (Hot Lava) and Vegas (Divas Las Vegas), Rosen gets back to his collards-and-fatback roots in Southern Fried, his latest novel.

Orphaned Trip Jackson’s plantation-owning granny dies, leaving most of her estate to him as well as a mysterious brother he didn’t know he had—but the mysteries don’t stop there. How did his parents really die? What of the senator who shares his newly-found brother’s last name? And does Billy Ray really have the hottest, saltiest nuts in the state? Only Trip and his hot stable boy/boyfriend Zeb know for sure, and how they find out makes for some hot and funny reading.

Rosen has a knack for this light, frothy mix (no, no…not santorum) of sex, mystery and setting, and this outing is just as satisfying as the others. Rosen’s characters are always enjoyable, and he puts them through some very interesting paces here. And while Southern Fried can be characterized as a beach read, it’s far more accomplished than many entries in that genre. It never stoops to be cloying or cute, relying on a breakneck sense of pacing.

But Rosen also has a way with false endings—just when you think all the loose ends are tied up, someone else makes a confession or another shot rings out and yet another piece of the puzzle falls into place. The plots aren’t complex, but Rosen packs them with details that all need to be ironed out for the kind of smooth ending he’s beginning to be noted for.

So if you’re weary of the holidays and just want a little time away from the mistletoe, pick up Southern Fried and dig in. But don’t be surprised if your turkey comes out deep fried.

Reviewed by Jerry Wheeler

Beatitude – Larry Closs (Rebel Satori Press)

Jerry and Bill — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 09:10:00 GMT

Buy it now from Rebel Satori Press

Unrequited love comes to us all at one time or another, but it’s particularly painful when you know from the get-go that it won’t work out. You forge ahead anyway, leading with your heart despite the warning signs. And when the letdown happens, the foreknowledge that it was inevitable doesn’t stop the hurt. That’s the fate of Harry Charity in Larry Closs’s novel Beatitude.

Harry Charity and Jay Bishop are office-mates at a New York entertainment magazine, but work isn’t all they have in common. Both of them are big fans of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road and the whole Beat Generation movement. In fact, they bond over the Beat Holy Grail—the original scroll manuscript of Kerouac’s best known work. The problem? Jay really loves his fiancee, Zahra. And Harry really loves Jay—just like he loved Matteo, who was also unattainable but for different reasons.

It would be tempting to make Zahra the villain here, but Closs wisely avoids this trap, keeping her in the shadows for the first few chapters and making her appear somewhat inscrutable when she does show up. That gives her a distance that allows us to focus on Harry and Jay. Likewise, Harry’s relationship with Matteo isn’t shown in detail until about halfway through the book. Those flashbacks, however, are all the more revelatory for the delay. Their absence lets us see the patterns Harry establishes with Jay so that we can better see the similarities between the two relationships.

One of the differences between them, however, is the danger factor. Jay is far more laid back and less explosive than Matteo. Their outings are more intellectual and less fueled by alcohol—still, at the end of the night Harry finds himself sleeping alone, emotionally unfulfilled by either of the men he’s fallen in love with. His dalliance with Matteo, though, eventually reaches an end when he can no longer stand the pressure. He (and we) hope his connection with Jay will not be severed as gruesomely.

Closs definitely knows his Beats, drawing an interesting portrait of Allen Ginsberg—including a fictional (I assume) interview with the poet as well as featuring two previously unpublished Ginsberg pieces. Ginsberg was a peculiar person; distant and mistrustful or warm and approachable depending on the minute you caught him in. Having taken one or two of his classes at the Naropa Institute, I can vouch for the veracity of Closs’s characterization.

My only quibble with this interesting and heartfelt examination of the differences and similarities between friendship and romance is Harry and Jay’s final telephone conversation—well, the one that ends the book anyway—in which they address each other as “bro.” A perfectly acceptable sobriquet these days, I suppose, but one that to my mind, tags their relationship as more superficial than I think Closs intends. But perhaps that’s my own prejudice.

Beatitude is a fine, poetic book, full of insight and sumptuous writing—perfect for meditation on love and friends.

Reviewed by Jerry Wheeler

When We Were Outlaws: A Memoir of Love and Revolution – Jeanne Cordova (Spinsters Ink)

Jerry and Bill — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 09:01:00 GMT

Buy it from Skylight Books

First, an anecdote—then, the review. They’ll link up, I promise.

In early 1975, I was a second-semester freshman at the University of Colorado, and I was enthralled by my first lesbian, a marvelous teaching assistant I’ll call Grace. She introduced me to some of my favorite books, taught me much about critical thinking and even gave me the courage to go to my first “gay mixer” at the nascent Gay and Lesbian Club (not yet affiliated with the university).

As one of her three or four acolytes, I was invited to an end-of-semester party at her apartment on the Hill in Boulder. Bellies full of some vegetarian dish, we commenced talking, smoking weed and drinking red wine made by her sister and some friends at the Duck Lake Commune up near Ward. Suddenly, she got up and went into a closet/darkroom off the living room (she was also an amateur photographer) and retrieved a black and white 8x10 of a woman sleeping on the very floral print sofa we were sitting on. The face was familiar but still it took a few minutes for us to realize the napping figure was Patty Hearst, kidnapped newspaper heiress turned revolutionary bank robber and the object of a nationwide manhunt. We were properly awed. And one of us must have been a snitch.

Three days later, our grades had still not been posted. We went to Grace’s office to see why, but she was gone and her office had been cleaned out. So had her apartment. In fact, no one wanted to talk about what had happened to her, and we were warned by everyone we asked not to get too nosy. We finally got grades for the class a year later, but we never saw or heard from Grace again.

Thankfully, L.A. Free Press reporter and Lesbian Tide founder Jeanne Cordova did not meet the same fate, though her testy meetings with American Nazi Party head Joe Tomassi brought the FBI close to her door. Cordova’s memoir When We Were Outlaws captures the politics of the tumultuous lesbian feminist 1970s and casts some fascinating light on Tomassi as well as the Weather Underground, Angela Davis and, yes, Emily Harris of the Symbionese Liberation Army, Patty Hearst’s kidnappers.

Cordova also details the labor strike against the L.A. Gay Community Services Center, including her betrayal by Morris Kight, her political mentor and founder of the GCSC. The relationship between these two is intense, and Cordova pulls no punches when dealing with either her admiration for him or her scorn. This is one of the most interesting relationships in the book—and one of the saddest, especially when one finally realizes what Kight thought of lesbians in the first place. I would have hoped for better from a gay brother.

But When We Were Outlaws is not all politics and polemic. Cordova’s shrewd observations are most astonishing when she’s looking at herself and her own love life—particularly her stormy relationship with Rachel, a woman she meets at the GCSC. Rachel comes between Cordova and her wife, BeJo, more than any occasional lover of Cordova’s has before, bringing a dynamic tension to their life as well as the book. Painfully honest and brilliantly written, her personal revelations carry even more urgency and importance than her political leanings, never letting us forget that activists have hearts as well as minds. And they sometimes lose both.

In a lesser writer’s hands, the sheer size of the cast involved in the rallies, meetings, marches and strategy sessions would be confusing, but Cordova knows just when to rein it in. She gives the reader an idea of the scope but keeps her eye on the key players at all times so her narrative never bogs down in extraneous detail. A tricky balance, to be sure, but Cordova’s experience in walking tightropes shows in both her pacing and her prose, which is at once journalistically objective and personally relevant.

But nothing encapsulates either Cordova or the times better than the front cover photo—Cordova wearing shades and leaning on a rail, her arms crossed, wearing a leather wrist strap and an armband, her hair wild and unruly, with a name tag on her chest and a Mona Lisa sneer on her lips, clutching a pack of Kools as if the smokes are all that’s keeping her still enough for someone to snap the picture. I kept going back to it whenever I closed the book to absorb what I’d just read. Clearly, a woman not to be fucked with.

But just as clearly, a woman with incredible stories to tell—and we can only hope that When We Were Outlaws is the first of a series of memoirs. If you’re at all interested in activism or our struggle for freedom and equal rights (and you should be), you owe it to yourself to read this and learn.

And if you’re out there, Grace, I’d love to hear from you.

Reviewed by Jerry Wheeler

The House of Wolves – Robert B. McDiarmid (Bear Bones Books)

Jerry and Bill — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:00:00 GMT

Buy it now from Lethe Press

The day I’m writing this—December 4^th—is my late partner’s birthday, always a time of bittersweet rememberance for me, as is the whole holiday season. I try to participate, but my heart simply isn’t in it anymore. Perhaps this wasn’t the best time to read Robert McDiarmid’s The House of Wolves, which sees the two main characters suffering from the same inestimable loss.

David and Roy have both been damaged by the loss of their respective partners. Roy immerses himself in teaching fifth grade while David turns away from the belief system that had sustained both his partner and their housemates. But the five men who lived with David and his late partner Richard are more than housemates—they are essential parts of each others social, physical and emotional beings, taking their philosophy from the Saanich, a Native American tribe. And they must accept Roy as one of their own if he and David are to have a successful relationship.

Make no mistake, this is an interesting read, if for nothing else than the Native American philosophy and its approach to end of life matters—highly ritualistic with honor and respect for both the departed and those remaining, all about animals and spirits and nature and man’s interconnection with his surroundings. And McDiarmid does an incredible job of making this complex value system understandable to readers who don’t have prior experience with that culture.

However, if you’re looking for a traditional storyline with conflict and resolution, you won’t find it here. We know from the beginning that the others in the house will accept Roy. In fact, the entire plot is built around bringing him into the fold, so there is no real threat that the expected outcome won’t occur. There is no conflict to resolve, but that appears to be the author’s intent. And that doesn’t mean it’s boring. The focus is on the process, the ritual, and the examination of a communal, non-monogamous lifestyle that, in many respects, should be a model for all gay men. Because when all is said and done, no one is going to look out for us except us.

I wish, though, that McDiarmid would have fleshed out some of the minor characters in the house a bit more. Roy and David are certainly well-done, as is Marlin—also a teacher and, perhaps, the one in the house closest in character to Richard, their late leader. And occasionally (to be expected when dealing in philosophical matters, I suppose), McDiarmid lapses into lecturing. Too much telling instead of showing. But those are very minor quibbles when considering the work as a whole.

Despite my personal poor timing with reading The House of Wolves, it’s an absorbing study of Native American culture as well as an interesting, if slightly idealized, look at the relationships between men.

Reviewed by Jerry Wheeler

Jewish Gentle and Other Stories of Gay-Jewish Living – Daniel M. Jaffe (Lethe Press)

Jerry and Bill — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 09:00:00 GMT

Buy it direct from Lethe Press

I think of myself as someone who doesn’t like short stories. When I want to scratch the itch to read fiction, I am more likely to pick up a novel by an unknown author than a collection of stories by one I like. After reading Daniel M. Jaffe’s recent collection, Jewish Gentle, however, I realize this is not an accurate self-perception. (I’ll add it to the list.) It isn’t short stories I dislike, but poorly crafted ones. And Jaffe’s tales are a far cry from the latter.

Jaffe’s collection of stories exploring “gay-Jewish living” covers a wide range of events—from coming out to hooking up, to meeting lovers, to mourning them. His narrators span a wide range of identities—across age, sexual orientation, gender and, in one less successful tale, species. What is most striking about Jaffe’s writing is his capacity to take the most time-worn tableaux and breathe new life into them. With only one or two exceptions was I surprised by where one of his stories went or how it ended; in most cases, by the third or fourth paragraph, I was fairly clear how each narrative was going to unfold. But Jaffe’s gift with language, with voice, with temporality, with suspense, with humor, with character, with mood made each of his tales utterly engaging. Never has the familiar felt as fresh as it does in Jaffe’s stories.

To my eyes, Jaffe’s most successful stories were those that wove together Jewish and gay identity in meaningful, but not heavy-handed ways. For example, “At Blumberg & Fong’s,” my favorite in the collection, brought together the pain of coming out with the politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a burgeoning American-Jewish identity with religious questioning in a way that allowed each dimension of the tale to refract through all the others beautifully. Similarly—and perhaps it struck me since I teach on a college campus and often assist with LGBTQ student programming—the struggle faced by the narrator in “Finding Home” as he juggles attendance at the Hillel meeting and the queer student gathering seemed quite poignant. And, for all its specificity, the story had something universal about it, as it sketched the nervousness that accompanies one’s first public encounter with other queer-identified folk. “Strawberry Mousse” meditated on food regulations and their importance to identity in a captivating manner. And the titular “Jewish Gentle,” which explored a couple’s foray into leather play, focused attention on the complicated relations between ethnic identity and desire by troubling associations between Jewishness and submission.

Jaffe has a particular gift for capturing the complicated emotional currents swirling around coming out. While “Kaddish” seemed a bit too obvious and heavy-handed, “Telling Dad” had just the right mournful air, as well as the hint of compromise that comes with age. “Happy Birthday to . . .” showed off Jaffe’s facility with voice in a stunning fashion. Jaffe also displayed his talent for capturing affect when he evoked AIDS in his stories. Far from being too sentimental, too maudlin or too matter-of-fact, he moves with great care and a gentle touch to reveal the on-going pathos around the disease.

The only place where Jaffe strayed were the stories that seemed to have little connection to gay-Jewish living, but where Jewishness seemed forced in somehow. (As a goyim, I may have missed the subtleties of some stories. Another reader, another reviewer might have a different experience.) In two stories, for example, the circumcision of a penis marked it as Jewish, and this was the Jewish detail in the story. This was especially unsettling in “Bless the Blue Angel” and “The Four of Us,” given how well-crafted and evocative they were otherwise. These stories would have been much better if Jaffe hadn’t tried to force their relation to the collection’s subtitle. (And given the latter’s allusion to a Freud quote, he might not have needed to follow the strategy he did.) And, Jaffe certainly knew how to sprinkle details of Jewish identity without marring a tale: “That Boy This Day,” for example, my second favorite story from the collection—a beautifully rendered, perfectly voiced story about young gay desire and a widow’s attempt to make sense of his marriage to a transgendered man—refers to rabbis and religious customs quite naturally and seamlessly.

Jaffe was also quite smart to sprinkle a handful of very brief vignettes into his collection. These 1-2 page interludes were fully realized stories, but they broke up the pace of the collection as a whole and left me wanting more. And that, I suppose, is the brilliance of a well-rendered collection of short stories like Jewish Gentle. By telling such well-spun tales with such well-crafted characters, Jaffe has left me wanting more . . . but in the best way. I don’t feel cheated of the longer, fuller tale; I feel charmed by these people into whose world I’ve been invited, and wistful that I couldn’t stay longer.

Reviewed by Kent Brintnall