Friday, December 25, 2015

My Razzle Dazzle: An outsider's true story by Todd Peterson




Reviewer: Merrick Hansen
Publisher: iUniverse (April 8, 2015)
Pages: 344


Peterson has written something that could be an honest relief to many. He recounts a difficult childhood – from being teased for playing with girls to far worse experiences as he grew older. On top of that, his story takes place in the Midwest where I grew up.

This is something that isn’t in the popular narrative of queer literature. Nobody really talks about the places where the same kind of harassment Peterson talks about still happens. Because where I am in Iowa, it might as well still be the 1970′s. Sleepy little towns still see plenty of us “different” folk being teased or at the very least stared at. For instance, I’ve been kicked out of a barber shop at least once within the last 7 years just for asking for a hair cut.

Obviously reviewing an autobiography is a little different, but what I can tell you is this: there is comfort in reading the story of someone who has been through similar harassment and experience. It is a comfort to see that things do improve, that they do eventually change and the people around us are generally only temporary – particularly if they’re negative or hateful.

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut



Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Europa Editions (Sept. 2014)
Pages: 370


This book is a fictional exploration of the life of one of Britain's finest novelists. It illuminates E M Forster's life in a way that makes you feel on intimate terms with Forster, knowing his thoughts and needs as keenly as your own. “Arctic Summer” is in fact the name of an incomplete novel written by E.M. Forster in 1912/13 but published only in 2003; and Galgut uses its title for his novel about the famous author. The story is well researched and much of the content, even word-for-word dialog, was taken from Forster’s diaries.

The first hundred pages or so explores Forster’s life growing up in England, showcasing his awakening homosexuality, his tormented and unconsummated relationships, and being constrain by proper English society. During this time he also meets the love of his life, an Indian student, Masood, much younger than himself. I had a tough time trudging through this section of the book. I found it well written, but it lacked action, and I found it exceedingly dull. I almost gave up on it.

Once Forester traveled to India, Egypt (where he had his first sexual affair), and again to India, my interest in the story skyrocketed. Beautifully woven into his travels are the details of his life that laid the foundation of his masterpiece A Passage to India. Galgut is a master at constructing realistic and compelling landscapes, from inhibiting England to war torn Cairo to exotically vibrant India. He gives these locations the same kind of fragile humanity that he gives Forester.

Galgut’s prose blends perfectly the spare and the lyrical, often letting gentle humor shine through. His pacing is flawless. I was swept up into his cadences, and was never overburdened with needless detail. My senses were awakened to sensory impressions that were visceral.


A lovely and interesting story, one of the most satisfying reads I’ve enjoyed in years. Anyone who enjoys a rich blend of romance, adventure, and exploring exotic locations will no doubt fine much to admire here.

Saturday, March 7, 2015

One Last Lie by Rob Kaufman


Reviewer: Jon Michaelsen
Publisher: Rob Kaufman 
Pages: 326


One Last Lie by Rob Kaufman in a word is awesome, an incredible psychological thriller that will have the reader hanging on the edge during the explosive and thrilling final pages. Which is odd, since the reader knows a very important fact very early on that drives the novel - and yet, I found myself shocked and stunned by the actual event. To say that I was affected is an understatement.

The first half of the tense and romantic novel seems tame at best, a love story between two men wanting desperately to have a child and the one driving this dream is the one who is sterile due to a previous bout with cancer, of which he is a survivor.

Kaufman is a master of romantic suspense. The novel is set in the beautiful, romantic Westport, Connecticut. The subject - gay couple wanting to father and raise a child - popular in today's gay culture. The protagonists, Jonathan Beckett and dashing Philip Stone, are successful, love their careers, very wealthy and can afford the finer things in life - and to fulfill their dream of having a child.

In comes Angela, an old college friend – err, girlfriend – of Philip’s, squirreling her way into Philip and Jonathan’s lives, ironically offering what the boys are looking for – someone to carry Jonathan’s child via artificial insemination. Angela experiences a Jekyll-Hyde complex, able to turn on a dime with both her low-life moronic boyfriend, Tommy, and her brooding – and easily manipulated -- best friend, June. Angela manipulates anyone around her that she feels able to advance her agenda, an agenda set into motion the moment Angela picked up and moved to Connecticut, without invitation, to assist the boys in having a child with her via artificial insemination.

Kaufman’s gift as a writer is detailed within the sharp dialog, vivid imagery, skillful flashbacks, and well-rounded multidimensional character portrayals, but his inherit talent lay in his remarkable ability to craft a spell-bounding story, laid out for the reader in a way to have you cheering for the good guys and demonizing the psychos.

There are critical clues dropped within the novel that are thrilling, yet disturbing yet the same as Kaufman’s hurls the readers toward a well-crafted, suspenseful climax that will leave some breathless and others – like me- angry. Yes, I said it; angry. The reason for my anger is simple: I didn’t want the ending to happen as it did yet I KNEW what the ending would be and still, the author managed to shock me.

Angela is neurotic, psychotic and delusional – all required traits in portraying the villainess she becomes. Several characters that came before her came to mind as I learned more and more about her character, such as “Alex Forrest” (portrayed stunningly by Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction”), or Annie Wilkes in Stephen King’s “Misery” (portrayed in film by the astounding Kathy Bates), even the sultry Rebecca de Mornay’s portrayal of Peyton Flanders in “The Hand That Rocks The Cradle”.

The malicious plot Kaufman’s Angela devises years before putting the such an evil plan into motion upon signing the co-parenting legal contract with Jonathan’s and Philip’s attorney.

But, I digress…Kaufman has created a spectacular psychological thriller that is sure to stun – is that the right word? – Readers of the genre. [Book:One Last Lie|14624158] is chock full of tense drama, betrayal, lies, compassion and violence; all the marks of an excellent thriller.

My only complaint is likely due to the HTML uploading issues unique to Amazon’s conversion technology for uploading e-books. The reader can become confused with the sudden backward or forward in time breaks without the benefit of section dividers. However, these small inadequacies are easily overlooked.

Ultimately, Kaufman has created a “must-read” novel for anyone searching for a kick-ass psychological thriller with a strong romantic theme. [Book:One Last Lie|14624158] will suck you in and won’t release you until the shocking ending, indeed the ‘one last lie’. 

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Behind The Velvet Curtain by Matt Converse


Reviewer: Cindi at On Top Down Under Reviews
Publisher: Comet Press
Pages: 65

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Blurb - Matt Jaxx is a sexy stripper who develops a fast following, but one of them turns scary stalker. Along the way he way he meets Justin and it’s lust at first sight, both doing things they’d only fantasized about. Right when he seems to have it all, his stalker reappears, revealing his twisted agenda. It’s a fast, fun, sexy, scary ride.

Review - Our main character is a male stripper who goes by the name Matt Jaxx. It doesn’t take long after his first performance for him to develop a quick following and to become very popular with the men who came to watch him strip for tips. He starts stripping part-time but it quickly turns into his full-time gig when he discovers how much money he can make. He’s having fun, the money is good, and who’d have thought he – a formally not-so-hot guy from Ohio – would be getting paid to dance for a bunch of men? The not-so-hot guy from Ohio – who once had acne and other things that took away from his appearance – is now every gay guy’s dream. And he uses that. Oh, how he uses it. He doesn’t get paid for sex, as that’s not his thing, but everything else? Yeah, he’s totally down with that as long as the men are paying.

Matt has been doing his thing for awhile when he meets Justin in the apartment building they both live in. It takes a little while for them to hook-up, but when they do it’s pretty hot. Justin is perfectly fine with what Matt does for a living and they gradually grow closer as a couple as time goes by. While performing one night, Matt notices an odd man in the audience. The man looks unkempt and not very interested in what’s going on on stage. The dude is creepy, but seems harmless, so Matt thinks nothing of it… until later. Later is when things get strange and a bit violent with Mr. Creepy. Saying more than that would be giving the story away and it’s only 60-something pages so I won’t spoil it in this review.

The story was interesting. I have a kink for male stripper and/or rent boy stories (though Matt makes it clear he’s not getting paid for sex) so that was a big plus for me. The romance between Matt and Justin was pretty sweet, and at times sexy. The creepy stalker guy was written well, though I wish more details would’ve been added in regards to a few things with him. This is billed as horror, though I didn’t feel that creeped out. Then again, I’m a huge horror reader so I may be jaded in that regard and others may see more of a creep factor than I did.

Overall, a good story. I found Matt to be more than a little full of himself, but I guess that was to be expected after the way his teenage years were described. I adored Justin and liked him more every time he was on page. Behind the Velvet Curtain isn’t very realistic, so don’t go into it expecting it to be. It is, however, a nice quickie read that entertains.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Best Gay Erotica 2015, Edited by Rob Rosen




Reviewer: Sacchi Green at Erotica Revealed
Publisher: Cleis Press
Pages: 216


It takes real balls for an editor to lead off his gay erotica anthology with a story that satirizes the genre itself. I say “balls,” but I admit that as a frequent editor of lesbian erotica anthologies I’d be tempted to do the same (or rather the equivalent) if I had as brilliant a piece to work with as “Different Strokes” by Richard Michaels (although I wouldn’t then claim to have “real balls,” just figurative ones. Maybe.) Michaels pulls off the tricky feat of being outrageously witty and still providing the nuts and bolts (and grease) to construct down-and-dirty sex scenes. Multiples sex scenes, in fact, or segments thereof, one after the other in a wild choose-your-own-adventure fuckfest. He piles cliché upon metaphor upon over-the-top image, switching imaginary partners from robust black stud to collegiate blond and still maintaining a convincing sexual tension between the writer/narrator and the reader in their shared quest for an ultimately rewarding wank-off. There are so many gems of descriptive overdrive here that it’s hard to choose just one quotation, but here’s a fairly tame taste:    
…even with the deep-throating technique that all we narrators of these hyperbolic flights of erotica learned the moment we wrote our first word, I could not ingest all of his munificence…like driving a truck through a tunnel that’s almost too small, steering this truck with its precious cargo on the glistening highway of my tongue until the front of the cab, with its retracted grillwork of flesh, struck a roadblock and could go no farther, so I put the truck into reverse and backed it up, and then metaphor breaks apart, as it always does in these stories, and we get back to basics: I sucked his dick.
 In case you can’t tell, I loved this story. The danger of a lead-off like this, though, is that the reader becomes sensitized to overblown prose and may be tempted to laugh rather than pant if other writers in the book get into a formulaic rut. I shouldn’t have worried, as it turns out, since, on the whole, all the stories are well-written, and some are memorable even aside from the sexual content. A few do get rather deeply into a morass of metaphors, but erotica readers develop the capacity to swallow plenty of that without gagging, so I’m not really complaining.
 Onward to other stories that I found memorable.  “Choice” by Rhidian Brenig Jones features a pair of likeable guys from Poland working in the UK, and their more-than-friendship with a young Catholic priest. “Feygele” by Alex Stitt mingles ornithological metaphors with the talents of a street firedancer in London. Gregory L. Norris’s “The Man In Black” is a science fictional tale wherein a shapeshifting alien gives the protagonist what he’s longed for from the various “men’s men, manly men” in his life who would never give him more than friendship. “Like Magic” by Salome Wilde involves a young man with a crush on a has-been vaudeville magician, not a very appealing object of desire, so readers seeking a vicarious erotic charge may not be satisfied, but the writing is excellent. Dale Chase’s “Nothing to Lose” is a complex and nuanced study of gay weddings, determinedly casual sex, and working through loss to healing. “From Here to There” by Xavier Axelson deals tangentially with a gay wedding, but what you’re likely to remember best is a fine use for lobster butter.
The final story, “Super Service” by Michael Roberts, is right up there with the first piece, “Different Strokes.” There’s a similar sly wit, and a knowing embrace of cliché, in this case the time-honored scenario of workmen coming to a home to fix plumbing, paint walls, whatever—three of them here—and using the tools in their tool boxes as well as those below the tool belt. The narrator stakes his tongue-in-cheek claim to upper-class erudition right away:
The vision in front of me wore an immaculately white crew-neck T-shirt that hugged his chest as if it and the torso had fallen in love and intended to cling to each other as closely as possible. I couldn’t blame the T-shirt. A fanciful image, peut-êtrè, but the sight made me absolutely giddy.
Later he stakes his claim to ordinary humanity by admitting that he can’t manage to get through the Henry James novel he keeps leaving behind in his chair and then sitting on. A sexy romp with attitude, similar enough in tone to “Different Strokes” that I wondered whether Michael Roberts and Richard Michaels were, perhaps, different sides of the same pseudonymous coin, but I’ll never know, and it doesn’t matter.  
  
Now that I’ve been scrolling down the table of contents, I realize that all of the stories are memorable in their way, each one worthy of being someone’s favorite. As so often happens in reviewing, I’m not the target audience for the erotic aspects of Best Gay Erotica, so there’s no reason to be swayed by my opinion on anything besides the quality of the writing. Some appealed to me more than others on that basis, but I can wholeheartedly recommend the book as a whole, with no if, ands, or peut-êtrès. (Admit it, you thought I was going make an obvious pun there. Shame on you.)