Book Review: Rabbis of the Garden State by Daniel Meltz

Reviewer: Alan Chin

Publisher: Rattling Good Yarns Press (2025)

Rating: ★★★★

Pages: 296

 

Set in a working-class Jewish family, an eleven-year-old Andy becomes aware of his divorced mother’s obsession with their synagogue’s new spiritual leader, Rabbi Landy. Her obsession transforms their ordinary family life into something puzzling, and for Andy, begins a growing resentment and eventual humiliation. At the same time, Andy begins to explore his own sexual longings with a best friend who has green teeth. As Andy’s sexual universe expands, he is thrust into yeshiva and he finds himself attracted to his Talmud teacher, Rabbi Loobling. Thus, mother and son travel along parallel paths as Andy explores his faith and desires. 

 

As the story progresses through Andy’s young life, eventually attending college and coming out, mother and son must come to terms with each other. Their path eventually reveals all their surprisingly complex family secrets that shock the entire New Jersey shores.

 

Daniel Meltz’s debut novel is a delightfully crafted story weaving a tapestry of complicated relationships. These are serious subjects told with humor and many heartfelt scenes. The story captures the flavor of adolescence, the temperament of the 1960s, and the relations between people who both love and hate each other. 

 

The author’s use of the first person POV narrator gives and in-depth window into Andy’s character, which is both complex and entertaining. The novel is well researched and puts the reader into every scene. I found the first half of the book funny and fanciful, the second half more serious and touching, with many reveals and plot twists. It kept my interest until the surprising ending. 

 

I look forward to reading more from this talented writer.

Book Review: Drought by Scott Alexander Hess

Reviewer: Alan Chin

Publisher: Rebel Satori Press (June, 2025)

Pages: 158

Rating: ★★★★★

 

A recluse from Newark, New Jersey, Parnell, inherits his Uncle Willy’s tobacco farm in Kentucky. Parnell moves to the farm hoping to finally make something of his failed life. Parnell, it turns out, is no farmer. He seems to possess no life skills at all. He is a big man, so large he struggles just lifting himself off a chair and walking to the next room. Yet with this inheritance, he prays he can achieve something for once in his life. On the farm, three things become abundantly clear: 1) The tobacco farm is in ruins due to a sustained drought, 2) Parnell can’t save the farm without substantial help, and 3) there was a great deal more to Uncle Willy than Parnell could ever have imagined. Parnell soon befriends Darl, who works at the local Sonic Drive-in, also John, an unusual pastor. Both guide Parnell down a path that literally unearths a long-hidden crime. This path, however, also gains Parnell a new sense of self.

 

Drought is a deftly crafted yarn. The fears, loneliness, anxieties, and surprising intimacies touch something deep in me. I loved this novella. I’ve read several of Scott Alexander Hess’s novels and Drought is my favorite. I loved it for its quirky characters, for its compassion, for its unexpected plot twists. It began slowly, but with beautiful writing and an excellent voice. For me, the story really unfolds when the POV switches to Uncle Willy’s backstory. This backstory describes a stunning love story, told with patients and charm, nothing rushed, nothing missed. It really grabbed me. Then the story swings back to Parnell’s POV and glides to a bittersweet conclusion, ending on a note of hope. 

 

This novella is a gem. Short but wonderful. This author has demonstrated that with plentiful talent, one can write an engrossing yarn in very few pages. 

Book Review: The Feast of Panthers by Sean Eads

Reviewer: Alan Chin

Publisher: Queer Space (August 23, 2022)

Rating: ★★★★

Pages: 420

 

All of Great Britain is thrown into jeopardy by an ancient Egyptian deity seeking to reestablish her religion in the heart of nineteenth century London. She is ruthless, merciless, and lethal. Her loyal followers are formidable shift changers who prefer to take the shape of panthers when they hunt their prey. As she gains followers and power, she decides she needs Oscar Wilde to become her high priest. With his abundant talent for writing, she wants him to write the most awe-inspiring invocations to her greatness. Wilde, with help from lovers and friends and even enemies, goes on a campaign to destroy this power-hungry immortal. Throughout the battle to overcome her tyranny, Wilde comes to better understand his relationships with his young male lovers, his wife, close friends, his enemies, and he finds what’s ultimately important in his life. But what helps him most is what the Goddess craves, his own genius as a writer and playwright.

 

An insightful, far-reaching novel pushing the boundaries of human imagination, where the forces that give life value―art, poetry, music, wellbeing, care, loved ones―are thrown into sharp relief. The Feast of Panthers exposes our shared vulnerability, the limits and benefits of compassion, and the fragile nature of being human. 

 

I confess I’m not a devotee of fantasy/thriller fiction, but I am a huge fan of well-crafted writing, and so I very much enjoyed this novel. This story has vibrantly drawn characters overcoming hideous foes. It is a story of survival, but more so it is an entrancing story of realizing love of those closest to you. 

 

The Feast of Panthers is a skillfully crafted yarn. The fears, loneliness, anxieties, and surprising intimacies seem genuine, and carry the reader along.

Like so many formula thrillers, this story leaves the reader feeling satisfied. It is a stimulating read with a splash of gay stardust to keep things more interesting.  

 

Book Review: Small Rain by Garth Greenwell

Reviewer: Alan Chin

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pages: 302

Rating: ★★★★★

 

A man’s life is thrown in jeopardy by a sudden, wrenching pain in his gut that thrusts him into the heart of the dysfunctional American healthcare system. Now a prisoner in an ICU ward, surrounded by an army of healthcare workers—some caring and competent, many indifferent and/or incompetent—he struggles to understand what is happening to his body, his life, and the man he loves.

A penetrating, far-reaching novel pushing the boundaries of human experience, where the forces that give life value―art, poetry, music, wellbeing, care, loved ones―are thrown into sharp relief. Feelings expand and contract: sense of time, fear, hope. Intimacies bloom. Fears crush. Small Rain exposes our shared vulnerability, the limits and benefits of sympathy, the ideal of art, and the fragile dream of America. Above all, this is an unexpected love story. 

 

An incredible novel… I confess in many ways I found this a horror story. The descriptions of the dysfunctional American healthcare system were both shocking and depressing. But this story has vividly drawn characters, many of them heroes, overcoming a hideous situation. It is a story about survival, but more so it is a beautiful love story. 

 

When the protagonist goes into the hospital with a ruptured blood vein, he’s close to dying, and because this happens during the height of the COVID epidemic, he is allowed no visitors. He is separated from a man he loves while faced with dying. This is a tender story of being divided from a loved one and the life you’ve created with him at the point in your life when you need him most.

 

Small Rain is an exquisitely crafted yarn. The fears, loneliness, concerns, and surprising intimacies seem genuine, and carry the reader along. The prose read like a diary, but the voice is one with the refinement of a seasoned professional.

 

I have now read three Greenwell novels. The other two, Cleanness and Mitko, were equally remarkable. Greenwell has quickly become one of my favorite gay writers. I can’t wait to read his other story, What Belongs to you.

 

 

Book Review: Pride, a novel by Samantha Ryan

Reviewer: Alan Chin

Publisher: Rattling Good Yarns

Pages: 231

 

Rating:★★★

Ben Bennett owns and manages a failing bookstore. Although he’s had offers to buy his shop, he somehow hangs on because he loves his quiet life, a snug existence surrounded by literary books, a single employee to keep him company, and his feisty sister Mal to stir things up. But that all changes when he crosses paths with Avery Fitzgerald, a close friend of his sister’s new boyfriend. Avery is vexingly handsome, absurdly wealthy, a savvy business developer, and very outgoing, everything Ben Bennett is not. Avery has one other attribute, he takes a shine to unobtrusive little Ben Bennett, and the more Ben refuses to give Avery the attention he seeks, the brighter that shine glows. 

 

Can complete opposites really attract each other? Not before their lives unravel in ways they never expected.

 

The more Ben tries to resist Avery’s advances, the more Avery finds new ways to weave himself into the fabric of Ben’s life until sparks fly and hearts collide. This is a modern, queer twist on Pride and Prejudice. And like P&P, if follows the romance formula of two people who are meant for each other but can’t seem to get it together until the very end. The road to love is never easy, especially for a geeky bookworm swimming in a sea of self-doubt.

A wonderful debut novel… I confess I was not looking forward to reading another romance novel, but this story has true grace and vividly drawn characters that entice the reader into this beautifully crafted yarn. The emotions and concerns seem genuine, and carry the reader along.

What struck me even more than the story’s insightful observations was the writing voice. Samantha Ryan tells a simple yarn with the refinement of a seasoned professional.

I did have one minor issue with this story. In order for the protagonist, Ben Bennett, to wander through most of the story oblivious to Avery’s obvious advances, the author makes Ben out to be rather dense, to the point of often being stupid. I found myself rolling my eyes in several spots. I feel she could have found better ways of handling the protagonist’s refusal of Avery.

That issue aside, I highly enjoyed Pride.

Book Review: Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen

Reviewer: Alan Chin

Publisher: Forge Books (Oct, 2022)

Pages: 277

Rating:★★★★

 

Lavender House, 1952: the family seat of recently deceased matriarch Irene Lamontaine, head of the famous Lamontaine soap empire. This estate offers a unique freedom, where none of the residents or staff hide their sexuality. But to keep their secret, they've needed to keep others out. And now they're worried they're keeping a murderer in.

Irene’s widow hires Evander Mills to uncover the truth behind her mysterious death. Andy, recently fired from the San Francisco police after being caught in a raid on a gay bar, is happy to accept. Andy had never imagined a world like Lavender House. He's seduced by the safety and freedom found behind its gates, where a queer family lives honestly and openly. But that honesty doesn't extend to everything, and he quickly finds himself a pawn in a family game of old money, subterfuge, and jealousy.

This is the first book in a series of Detective Evander Mills mysteries.

 

This is a tale of loss and redemption. The hero, Detective Mills, is at the end of his rope after being caught having sex in the men’s room of a gay bar. He loses everything, but then he is hired as a private detective to solve a murder. He soon finds that Lavender House is an island of gay honesty within a sea of 1950’s bigotry. In this open environment, Mills finds that a new life, an open life, is possible. This story is not just a murder mystery, and in fact, the mystery seems secondary to the awaking that Mills experiences. This is about bigotry, learning to stand your ground, and more importantly, learning to stand up for those like you, your family. 

 

I found this book rather slow in parts, and I also found the solving of the mystery was neither complex nor exciting, but the author was able to take me back sixty years, into my teens, to a time before gay rights. I lived through this time of bigotry, when I had to hide who I was from my family, friends, the entire world. This author skillfully made me remember what that bigotry felt like, the fear and shame, and for that I found this a fascinating read. Well done. 

 

Ultimately, this is a taut story of crushing loneliness and the fragility of human connections. It delves into the desperate need we feel to cling to anything that lessens that loneliness. The characters are brutally authentic, and the author handles them with sympathy and honesty. The reader so easily feels compassion, even becomes them as they face morally difficult choices.

 

Like so many formula thrillers, this story leaves the reader feeling satisfied, like a wool blanket on a chilly afternoon. It is an easy read with a splash of gay stardust to keep things more interesting.

 

This book was discussed at my book club, and we had a lively dialogue where everyone gave it two thumbs up.