Gay/Lesbian Fiction Book Reviews

Gordan The Giraffe by Bruce Brown, Illustrated by A. Shelton

2012-01-29T12:30:00.000-08:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Aarcana
Pages: 49

Gordan is a young giraffe living in the secret kingdom known as Ugladunga. His playmates all shun him until one day Gary invites him to play the game of Mulunga Doo. The other Giraffes laugh at them, because Mulunga Doo is a game a male giraffe can only play with a female giraffe. When Gordon cries to his mother, she tells him not to worry, he has a big heart and can play the game with anyone he chooses. But when the others try to trick Gordan and Gary into a dangerous situation, their plan backfires putting the perpetrators in peril, and only Gordan can rescue them. Is his heart big enough to forgive and save them? Of course, this is after all a children’s tale.

One of the wonderful benefits of reviewing books is being exposed to a wide variety of genres and writing styles, and every once in a blue moon getting the opportunity to read a children’s book with an LGBTQ theme. I’ve had the privilege of reading several and I have found them all delightful. Gordan the Giraffe was no exception.

It is a simple storyline with equally simple words, yet with an underlying message of acceptance of people who are different, because even people who are different can be brave and selfless. A wonderful message for kids. One of the things that sets this book well above the norm is the colorful and beautiful artwork. Like many kids books, there are plenty of pictures to tell the story, and is one I would be proud to hang on my walls as art.

The child inside me found this book to be an enchanting read—both mentally and visually—and I highly recommend it to all kids, and the kids inside of other adults.

This book is not released yet, and I've been given no buy link.

The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov by Paul Russell

2012-01-23T10:26:00.000-08:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Cleis Press
Pages: 374

Sergey Nabokov was born into a wealthy family in pre-communists Russia. His father was a respected member of the government. His older brother would grow to become the brilliant writer, Vladimir Nabokov. While enjoying a luxurious lifestyle in Russia, Sergey grew up in the shadow of his older brother. As Sergey matured into puberty, it became apparent that he was gay and a bit of a dandy, which, as far as his family was concerned, pushed him deeper into the shadow cast by Vladimir.

Both brothers were forced to flee their mother Russia when the Bolshevik revolution brought the communists to power. They traveled to England where they received an education at Cambridge University, and then settled in Paris. Sergey became known to the artist crowd of pre-war Europe, hobnobbing with Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Picasso, Diaghilev, Stravinsky, Magnaus Hirschfield, and Nijinsky. But as his finances dwindled, Sergey became more and more desperate, turning to opium for a bit of comfort and living off the generosity of men. As war with Germany loomed, Vladimir fled to the United States while Sergey ended up in isolation in war-torn Berlin. Sergey died after spending two years in a Nazi concentration camp for the crime of being gay and for speaking out against the Nazi regime.

This is a meticulously researched novel, which recreates the rich and changing world of pre-WWII Europe with exquisite detail. The novel starts in Berlin during the decline of Nazi Germany, with most of the novel seen through flashbacks. Russell takes the sparse details of Sergey’s life and weaves it into a fictional memoir that is both convincing and inspiring.

What struck me most about this work was the lavish, beautiful prose. I’ve read few modern novels that can compare. The voice Paul Russell captures is both lush and believable. The detail in the scenes he paints is remarkable.

I did have one issue with this novel. Russell committed the one sin that a novelist should never allow—he often bored me. There was simply so much detail to wade through that, however beautiful, slowed the action down to a crawl. Vast quantities of detail, in my opinion, added little to the storyline. The emotional highs weren’t very high, the lows not so low. Through vast sections of the story I found myself wanting to skip ahead to the next chapter, or the one after that.

This is a riches to rags story, contrasting the two brothers’ lives. It is ultimately a novel about a vulnerable boy who, through adversity and a few bad choices, grew into a courageous man. It is a remarkable work.

Simple Treasures by Alan Chin

2012-01-19T14:38:00.000-08:00

Reviewer: Edward C. Patterson
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Pages: 136

When I want to curl up with a beautifully written, heartfelt tale of redemption, I come to Alan Chin -- he's the ticket. And again, with Simple Treasures, he has authored a stylish work of depth. I'm Native American, so I was fascinated with his treatment of tribal mysticism, especially in regard to the afterlife. He hit it right on the head. Life and death are leaves fallen from the same tree. If hope is what we sow, our lives are redeemed. It quite took my breath away.

Simple is not a simple man. He has a past, which he records into journals because of his amnesia, which resets his memory banks each day. Like his mind, he's a drifter, but we soon learn that although he copes with daily existence, he has heaps of hope nestled within his self-doubts. Simple is cast into an almost untenable employment situation where he must interact with other damaged souls -- Jude, Emmett and Lance, all in need of Simple's brand of healing -- a course of growth as old as the hills. All the emotions dance through this tale -- love, self-doubt, rage, greed and pride. Simple is the tie that binds them all. I wished the tale was longer, so I could linger at that dusty haven of a ranch where these souls intermingle.

Alan Chin's strength is character development, although it goes beyond that. Each character is set on a rolling tide, which hooks into an aspect of the main theme. The tone recalls Casteñeda with a hint of King's The Gunslinger, although Mr. Chin's style is uniquely warm -- his story telling subtly tugging at the heartstrings. I really came to care for all the characters -- even the chief bum of the story. I love the way the characters developed, overlapping each other, heading for the same point, but then hurtling to different destinations. Simple Treasures is superbly written. I highly recommended it.

http://alanchin.net

Book Review: Our Time: Breaking The Silence of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” by Josh Seefried

2012-01-04T08:46:00.000-08:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: The Penguin Press
Pages: 191

Our Time is an interesting, sometimes fascinating, often emotional compilation of first-person essays from gay and lesbian military personnel who had to hide their sexuality while serving in the US Armed Forces. It marks the end of nearly two decades of silence, and finally gives voice to the queer men and women who put their lives on the line in service to America under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Each story is only two to four pages long, a snapshot of the internal and external struggle that these service people had to live each hour of every day. Almost all branches of the service are represented, and these stories come from officers as well as enlisted personnel. These accounts detail the abuse—physical and mental—endured at the hands of their fellow soldiers and superiors, as well as the hardships suffered by the family members and partners of lgbt soldiers.

Now that these divisive policies are a thing of the past, gay and lesbian service people no longer need to live under the conditions outlined in these personal stories, but this book stands as a significant historical account of what was a legal injustice in this country, told by the people who suffered under the discrimination.

Each personal account records the unique experience of that service person, yet common themes weave through each of these stories:

Lieutenant Colonel Tim Walker writes, “I could not list my partner as a dependent on any forms. What were my rights—what were his rights—if I was hurt or incapacitated or killed? He would not even get notification if the worst happened. He was not eligible for my pension, benefits, visitation rights, counseling, or even the flag from my coffin if I died.”

Petty Officer Second Class Alex Johnson writes, “Part of my preparations for deployment included establishing guidelines for communicating with my significant other. We had to devise a way to hide the true nature of our relationship. So we created Yahoo e-mail addresses under fake names, and we developed a code to mask sensitive language. While I was deployed, if I wished to tell him I loved him, I would say, ‘One four three.’ We put other similar expressions in code so we could speak “freely” to each other.”

Warrant Officer Tania Dunbar writes: “For the past eleven years I have had to conceal my family from my friends. Soldiers, with whom I sweat, bleed, and cry, can’t ever meet the woman I love. Soldiers who depend on me for sound judgment and advice can never know who I myself go to when I need advice or solace. Friends who would die for me can’t ever meet the person who makes me want to live. Don’t get me wrong—there are a few soldiers who know I am gay, but it takes a long time to learn if you can trust someone with a secret that can ruin your career. So I don’t make friends easy, I don’t go to military functions very often. For me, home life cannot mix with work life.”

My one minor complaint about this book is the repetitiveness. There are over forty stories, and many parrot similar experiences. Still, throughout these many accounts the thing that shines through is the bravery and selflessness of these soldiers who defend our liberties while their own freedom was denied.

This is a significant book, both personally and politically. Josh Seefried, an Air Force officer and codirector of OutServe, has done a splendid job of presenting these voices of anguish and struggle and hope.

http://us.penguingroup.com/

Butterfly’s Child by Alan H. Chin

2011-12-19T16:03:00.000-08:00

Reviewer: Jack A. Urquhart

Publisher: Dreamspinner Press

Reading Alan Chin’s powerfully engaging novel, Butterfly’s Child (Dreamspinner Press, 2010) put me in mind of Vito Russo’s groundbreaking exploration of homosexuals in cinema, The Celluloid Closet (book, 1987). Employing painstaking documentation, Russo exposed the long and sorry history of homosexuals portrayed in film as creatures defined by their sexuality—men (and a very few women) presented as the butt of countless jokes, as victims of violence, and destructive self-hatred.

The trend Russo decried is, of course, no less evident or long standing in literature; think Gore Vidal’s The City and the Pillar (1948), Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) and Suddenly Last Summer (1959), Mart Crowley’s The Boys in the Band (1968), and, yes—Annie Proulx’s wildly popular 1997 short story, “Brokeback Mountain”. Even in so small a sample, the reader is hard pressed to find a single gay character who isn’t brought low by self-loathing or worse, destroyed outright—usually by an act of extreme violence. And while few would question the literary merit of the works cited, it is surely evident that, until relatively recently, there hasn’t been much (at least in literary fiction) that even hints at the possibility of a homosexual “happily-ever-after”.

A few mainstream exceptions do exist; Jane Hamilton’s under-appreciated gem, The Short History of a Prince (1998), Julia Glass’s Three Junes (2002) and its follow-up, The Whole World Over (2006) spring to mind. And now, count Alan Chin among the growing list of artists—more and more of them, self-identified Indie authors—whose work is helping lay to rest the cruel tradition Russo exposed. Witness Butterfly’s Child, Chin’s novel of fathers and sons, gay and straight.

Cord Bridger, the thirty-four year old ‘star’ of Butterfly’s Child, is most assuredly gay; but Chin casts his protagonist in 3-D creating in the process a complex, nuanced, fully fleshed, and yes—ever-so-humanly damaged hero. Cord’s back-story, presented early in the novel, yields suitably operatic clues (a metaphoric link to Puccini’s opera shows up in an early scene) to his psyche. Paternal abandonment, the subsequent suicide of his mother when he was four, and a youth passed on the culturally deprived high desert plains of Nevada, the reader learns, are the precursors to Cord’s adult existence on the fringes of New York City’s gay A-List.

The bearer of formidable musical gifts, including perfect pitch, Cord’s dreams of a career as a concert pianist—flames stoked by his years at Julliard—have long since cooled to smoke and ashes as the novel opens. Instead, Cord has ‘settled’ into a long-term stint at Steinway where he is the senior voicing specialist for the company’s concert grands—a career that brings Cord no closer to fulfillment than the fleeting moments of genius he sometimes experiences in tuning Steinway’s expensive pianos. In many ways, Cord is an instrument awaiting tuning himself, an emotional tuning, that is—a fact that does not sit well with his successful and increasingly dissatisfied lover, Cameron. In short, Cord’s life in NYC seems almost as lifeless and barren as the minimalist perfection of the Central Park West apartment he shares with his seldom-at-home partner.

All that changes when the necessity of settling his recently deceased grandmother’s estate draws Cord back to the Nevada ranch (appropriately named ‘Bitter Water’) that he abandoned years earlier. One could argue that Chin’s novel doesn’t take off until Cord deplanes in Nevada. That is because almost from the moment he returns, Cord confronts a host of jarringly inescapable challenges and responsibilities—not the least of which is the fifteen year-old son (the fruit of a teenage fling) that he never knew he had.

A young man bearing the crushing weight of his own abandonment and long-term abuse issues, Cord’s son Kalin and his seven-year old half-brother Jem soon become Cord’s responsibility in a twist that sets up the series of violent, gut-wrenching confrontations that mark the novel’s climax. Add to the cast a new love interest in the person of Tomeo, a practicing Buddhist; Jesse, the boys’ strung-out mother and her sadistically violent abuser, Jack (as truly a loathsome villain as this reader has ever encountered in fiction), and Blake, Cord’s estranged father, and you have the makings of a bona fide page-turner. It helps that Chin, a skillful storyteller, knows how to string the reader along with scenes that stack up and build—sometimes relentlessly, as Cord, increasingly in-tune with what matters, struggles to build and then protect his new family. The result is that Butterfly’s Child offers an exhilarating, moving, sometimes disturbing journey that nevertheless manages to gallop (literally) to a satisfying conclusion.

Speaking of which, I can imagine that some readers might find Chin’s somewhat tidy, Zen-like finish a stretch (given the formidable violence that precedes it). Likewise, it is possible some readers may stumble over the novel’s arguably un-necessary metaphoric dalliance with the Butterfly (Puccini’s and nature’s own variety) and/or the overlay of Buddhist philosophy that Chin delivers courtesy of several longish exchanges between Tomeo and Cord. But, for my part, these do not detract from the novel’s many strengths; indeed, the mini-dissertations on Buddhism seem central to Cord’s eventual arrival at a place of quiet gratitude and contentment.

As for any possible objections to the novel’s gay protagonist-triumphs-over-all ending, I can only wonder how Vito Russo might have addressed that concern—perhaps with an appropriately dismissive “isn’t it about time”?

http://alanchin.net

Book Review: For the Ferryman by Charles Silverstein

2011-12-15T13:08:00.000-08:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Chelsea Station Editions
Pages: 336

Charles Silverstein is not a name that I’ve heard pop up in discussions about the Gay Rights Movement, yet he quite possibly may have had more impact on securing equal rights for the lgbt community than Harvey Milk and others more famous. In this fascinating memoir, Silverstein uses the first half of the book to recount his career of fighting for gay rights, particularly in the psychiatric community, and he uses the second half of the book to narrate his twenty-five-year relationship with his life-partner, William Bory.

Silverstein’s most important contribution to the gay community was his historic 1973 presentation before the “Nomenclature Committee” of the American Psychiatric Association which led to the removal of homosexuality as a mental illness from the diagnostic manual, which eventually was responsible for decriminalizing gay sex between consenting adults. He went on to establish two gay and lesbian counseling centers in New York, and also was the founding editor of the Journal of Homosexuality, now in its fifty-seventh volume.

Silverstein is best known for co-authoring the groundbreaking 1977 The Joy of Gay Sex with Edmund White, and co-authoring the sequal 1992 The New Joy of Gay Sex with Felice Picano, which brought the original book up to date with regards to the AIDS crisis. Silverstein also authored a book geared to the parents of gay youth: A Family Matter: A Parents’ Guide to Homosexuality, 1977. So as you can see, the author is no lightweight. He has had a tremendous impact on gay rights, and the personal accounts of his activism are both fascinating and inspiring.

The author’s relationship with William Bory was both touching and riveting. Silverstein speaks candidly of their relationship, their travels to many exotic locations, William’s plunge into drug addiction that included crack cocaine and heroin, and William’s battle with AIDS. The author paints Bory as an eccentric genius that Silverstein loved deeply despite titanic flaws. Their relationship was loving, yet vexing, and the reader is never sure what will happen next.

I’d like to include a passage that shows the author’s personal and humorous style of writing:
When God gave out physical attributes, he did not do it equitably. For all-around attractiveness, the Germans cannot be beat (“God’s little joke,” William mused.) The Scots were given the most perfect asses (not that they knew what to do with them the year William and I were in Scotland.) To the Dominicans he gave large, beautiful penises that hung snugly over their testicles like those drawings of male genitalia in anatomy textbooks that make one wonder whether they are the sexual fantasies of the artists. I did not know about this physical attribute until I arrived at the Hotel Victoria.

So as you can see, this book is not some dry recount of someone’s career, but rather a fun and interesting account of two fascinating people during a time when equal rights for the lgbt community was exploding.

This is a book that is mandatory reading for anyone who has an interest in the Gay Rights Movement, politics during the AIDS crises of the ‘80s and ‘90s, or for anyone who simply wants to read an enthralling love story that happens to be true. For The Ferryman is a bold self-portrait of a distinguished and astounding life.

http://www.chelseastationeditions.com/

Junction X by Erastes

2011-12-06T14:07:00.000-08:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Cheyenne Publishing
Pages: 198

On the outside, Edward Johnson seems to have a perfect pin-striped life—wife, couple of kids, white-picket fence in one of the better suburbs, country club membership, and works as a stockbroker. He even gets an occasional blowjob from his buddy, Phil, on the morning train into work. Could life get any sweeter?

But then a new family moves in next door, and they have a beautiful seventeen-year-old son, Alex. A slow but powerful attraction grows between Ed and Alex. Ed has never considered himself a pedophile, so he fights the urge to flirt with Alex, but each time they are together, try as he might, Ed can’t control his growing desire for the boy. He stalks the boy until they have a sexual encounter while driving.

Ed is filled with gilt and remorse, and knows he’s going down an immoral path, but at the same time he lures Alex into a steamy affair. But how long can Ed juggle the responsibilities of family, office, and a teenaged boyfriend? And can Alex, being so young and inexperienced, control the volcanic feelings churning in his heart.

The first half of this story reads rather slowly, skillfully building in tension, and seems like a typical romance novel, albeit one with a middle-aged man falling for an underage boy. But shortly past the halfway mark, I realized two things: first, Ed was not the protagonist but rather, the antagonist; and two, this wasn’t a romance novel that would have a happily-ever-after ending. I was right on both counts.

This is a story about how unbridled obsession can ruin lives. Ed begins as a morally upright person with only a few skeletons in the closet. But his passion for Alex slowly leads him into being a pathetic, cheating scoundrel. And of course, he drags everyone connected with him into that same train wreck.

The plot is a simple one, without any subplots to cloud the water. But there is something to be said for a simple story told well, and this story is told extremely well. Erastes has obviously worked hard to improve her writing style and voice, and it shines here.

It is not often I come across a novel written in first person where the narrator is the antagonist. It gives the reader a rare glimpse into an unstable character, giving Edward tremendous depth as the author peals away his layers. He becomes a fascinating character, even as he disgusts. Yes, he’s a train wreck, but the reader can’t look away.

I did have one issue with this story. I felt that in the first ten pages, the author gave away too much, to the point where I knew most everything that would happen in the first 90% of the book. At midpoint, she broadcasted the other 10%. I would have been happier had she given away less and surprised me more.

That said, this is a passionate, emotional story. The characters pull the reader in and keep building the tension until the very last page.

If you are searching for a typical romance that will steam your glasses and make you feel good in the end, keep looking. If you enjoy a serious story of how mistakes cause pain, how passion can injure as well as please, then by all means, give Junction X a read.

http://www.erastes.com

CAREGIVER by Rick R. Reed

2011-11-24T09:21:00.000-08:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Pages: 205

Dan and Mark have their difficulties. Neither are working and Mark seems not to be sexually interested in Dan. The honeymoon is definitely over for this couple. The problem? Cocaine. They had recently moved from Chicago to South Florida in a failed attempt to pull Mark away from his drug addiction.

While Dan beats the bushes for a job, he also finds plenty of time on his hands, so being a giving person, he volunteers at the Tampa AIDS Alliance to be a buddy to people suffering from AIDS. This story takes place in 1991, before the cocktails that prolonged AIDS-suffer’s lives, so there are plenty of buddies to choose from.

Dan’s HIV buddy, Adam, turns out to be light years beyond all expectations. Adam is flamboyant, witty, wise, giving and charming. He is the type of friend one finds only once or twice in a lifetime. The two quickly bond (non-sexually) and become friends for life. In their short time together, Adam teaches Dan several life lessons, including how to be strong and stand up for himself, something at Adam is a pro at.

Dan also befriends Adam’s lover, Sullivan, who is easy on the eyes but a bit standoffish. Dan is attracted to Sullivan, but is too much the gentleman to go after Adam’s man.

All seems well for Dan until Mark falls off the wagon and plunges the couple into an unknown landscape, while at the same time Adam lands himself in prison. The problems (as often happens in Rick Reed’s novels) seem insurmountable. But while this author leads his characters into hell, he always leaves them a trail of breadcrumbs to follow back. But will they?

Having lived my young adult life in an epicenter of the AIDS epidemic, and having lost my share of friends and loved ones to the disease, it is clear to me that the author draws from personal experience in writing this gripping story. I found that, although this story is set in the height of the AIDS epidemic, it is a story about friendship, love and finding courage. It is a sad, often humorous, and inspirational journey.

This is a story that resonates with me. I enjoyed the characters and their undertaking, and I can recommend it to all who enjoy a dark and complicated tale.

http://www.rickrreed.com

Deadly Kind of Love by Victor J. Banis

2011-11-10T08:31:00.000-08:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Pages: 215

When Chris Rafferty returns to his room at a posh Palm Springs resort, he finds a naked man in his bed. This is not so unusual considering this gay resort is known for satisfying their clientele’s needs with young hustlers, but this hustler is a little too stiff for Chris’s liking. This hustler is dead. Even before calling the police, Chris calls his good friends, Stanley Korski and Tom Danzel, a gay couple who are San Francisco private detectives.

Once Tom and Stanley take the case, they drive to Palm Springs and meet with PS homicide detective Dick Hammond. The three men confirm that the deceased was a hustler who worked the resort, and that he was murdered and dumped in Chris’s room.

Tom and Stanley check into the resort, and are given the royal treatment while they investigate clues. They have a hunch that the killer was one of the well-to-do gay clients, and that he is watching their every move. The closer they get to identifying the killer, the more bodies pile up until the killer decides to target the detectives. The boys soon find themselves in a deadly game and in over their heads.

Deadly Kind of Love is the fifth novel in the Deadly Series, and the third one I’ve read. It is told with the same delightful voice and quick pacing that Mr. Banis captures with each of these Deadly books. Fans of this series will no doubt enjoy this latest offering, as I did, to follow these sexy investigators through plot twists and turns.

Banis has created something special with this detective duo, and the mystery and motives fall second to the interplay between these characters. Still, I felt something lacking in their chemistry in this 5th book. The magic that I’ve seen in other Deadly books was there, but not with the same wit and intensity. I also felt the author rushed to reveal the killer and wrap up the ending, which I must say was, none the less, exciting.

Followers of the Deadly Series as well as mystery lovers in general will no doubt enjoy this latest outing from master author Victor Banis.

http://www.vjbanis.com/

True Stories – Portraits from My Past by Felice Picano

2011-11-03T08:12:00.000-07:00

This charming collection of memoirs by author Felice Picano is written in fifteen vignettes. The author recounts tales of his childhood, his experiences as a GLBT publisher, his co-founding the now-famous Violet Quill Club, his early years as a journalist, and his encounters with the rich and famous—including Bette Midler, Tennessee Williams, W.H. Auden, Charles Henri Ford, and the queen of Twentieth-Century fashion, Diana Vreeland. For the most part, the author tells his story via his relationships with an array of fascinating people that helped guide his destiny.

I found this read to be compelling and deliciously entertaining. Many of these stories span the gulf between the post-stonewall flowering of gay culture to the harsh years of AIDS. Picano writes with wit, sensitivity and vivid detail. It is still hard for me to imagine that one person could cross paths with so many interesting people in only one lifetime, but the truly remarkable aspect is that he was able to capture those experiences in such a delightful collection of anecdotes and portraits.

Each vignette is equally entertaining as the others. Whether he’s talking about partying down with Bette Midler at the Continental Baths, or a not-so-simple road trip with his father, or caring for a dying business partner, or lunching with the dragon-lady of New York high fashion, I could not put it down. This is a book I will read over and over.

http://www.felicepicano.net/

August Farewell by David G. Hallman

2011-10-20T09:27:00.001-07:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: iUniverse, Inc.
Pages: 167

In August of 2009, Bill Conklin was diagnosed with stage-four, pancreatic cancer. Only sixteen days later, Bill died. Bill’s partner of thirty-three years, David Hallman, narrates this sixteen-day journey interspersed with vignettes drawn from their rich and varied life together.

For the most part Bill was unconscious during his last weeks, so this memoir is more of David Hallman’s experience of caring for and letting go of his lover after a long and beautiful relationship. This book started as a personal account for David, as he wanted to document the details of those last weeks together before his memory began to fade, and much of it does seem like a personal diary.

I found the book well written with good pacing except for one issue. It is written in present tense. The author states up front that all these events happened in 2009, and then voices his story as if it were happening as he tells it. I found this very jarring, something that bothered me from first page to last.

One thing I found fascinating is that, one week after Bill’s diagnoses, he was bedridden, in much pain, couldn’t eat, couldn’t talk, didn’t even have the strength to suck water through a straw, yet they continued to keep him alive for as long as possible—another nine days of pain. If he were a horse, they would have mercifully shot him. Why, in this day and age, can’t we find the compassion for humans that we have already found for animals?

This is not a pleasant story. It is told with poignancy, humor, affection, and a good deal of tears. But be aware, I found this to be a depressing read. A bright spot is that the author delves into their life together: their commitment to environmental justice, love of the arts, love of traveling, and their deeply felt Christian beliefs.

This is a tale of letting go, a journey through the past to gain the strength to endure the separation. This is not a book I can recommend to all readers. Perhaps to readers who have made similar journeys, or people preparing for their own loss.

http://davidghallman.com/

Bob the Book by David Pratt

2011-10-16T16:37:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Chelsea Station Editions
Pages: 184

Bob is a book about pre-nineties gay porn, complete with many hot pictures. He is delivered to a Greenwich Village bookstore, where he goes on sale beside another book, Moishe, whose title is Beneath the Tallis: The Hidden Lives of Gay and Bisexual Orthodox Jewish Men. Bob and Moishe fall in love, but are separated by an unlikely buyer.

As Bob journeys through sales tables, used book bins, different owners, and lecture halls, he meets a variety of other books and people, but he’s always hunting for Moishe.

Bob finds himself in a peculiar position; both he and his owner are searching for love. Both seem to find something, but it’s not ideal for either of them. Can Bob, being at the mercy of people, somehow find fulfillment? Can his owner find the same contentment? All I can say is, it’s not easy being a book in love.

This is one of the most delightful stores I’ve read all year, and the fact that it is a debut novel only adds to the pleasure. On the surface it seems like a whimsical love story, both for Bob and his human owner, as well as several other book couples. But under that simplicity, there are some important life lessons to be examined. There is much Zen-like wisdom woven into this enchanting tale, lessons on taking one’s self too seriously, and of striving for things that are not important, just to name a few.

The pace and tone never drags. This story carries the reader along with many funny twists regarding the literature industry. Of course it’s not at all believable, but it is an extremely well constructed love story, both for the books and human characters.

What amazed me most was in the examining these books’ personalities. By giving them human characteristics, the reader clearly sees where humans spin their wheels dealing with unimportant life issues.

Readers who are familiar with the publishing industry will especially appreciate this novel, but all readers can enjoy this wonderfully smart and touching book. Because the main characters are books, it transcends every boundary of gender and sexual orientation, making it an entertaining read for men and women, boys and girls, gay and straight. That’s its genius.

http://www.chelseastationeditions.com/id3.html

Butterfly Dreaming by Dave Lara & Bud Gundy

2011-10-10T12:10:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: CreateSpace (Nov. 14th, 2010)
Pages: 334

Banat Frantz is a Jewish boy growing toward manhood in Germany when Adolf Hitler comes to power. At an early age, Banat already feels the animosity directed toward his family. He experiences shame and fear, but doesn’t understand what it is that makes him different from those who hate. His upper-class family is stripped of almost everything before fleeing to Holland, where they think they have escaped Hitler’s grasp. But within a few years the Nazis invade Holland and they are made prisoners and shipped to work camps.

Banat grows into puberty while living in a concentration camp, and what he discovers is that his growing lust is directed at other boys, not girls. By now he knows to hide his feelings of being different than others. But when he meets Dovid, (yes, Dovid with an ‘o’), he falls in love. What starts as an adolescent crush deepens into a consuming love that will sustain Banat through the horrors that await him.

Soon the family is split up, and Banat and his father are shipped to a different camp. Over time they are shipped to several work camps, all the time moving closer to Auschwitz. Banat and Dovid are separated as well. By cunning and trickery, Banat does manage to survive the end of the war, and he goes about trying to track down his splintered family and bring them together again. There are joys and tragedies to be endured, and then the search for Dovid begins. Can Dovid have survived as well? Can the lovers reunite?

This is not an easy story to read, due to the shocking way the Jewish characters are treated by other Europeans. The horrors described both before and in the concentration camps is heartbreaking. But there are joys as well. Even in these brutal conditions and knowing what awaits them, they find love and tenderness, not just with Banat and Dovid, but other characters as well. This story is a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit, and also of the power of love.

Banat is a perfect character, exhibiting both qualities and faults, as he comes of age and maturity within the most brutal conditions. He must fight for survival, yet with his being gay, he can’t confide in his own family. With death and anguish a constant, he must somehow explore the depths of love, need and joy. And he does so with virtue and morality.

But this story goes far beyond the concentration camps. Once the war is over, Banat must continue to strive in order to reunite his family. This brings both joy and sadness, and in the end grows bitter because he finally comes out to his family. Banat turns away from his parents and continues his search for Dovid. He becomes involved with the emerging gay scene in Paris, and begins to explore his sexuality. But the despair of not finding Dovid eventually drives him across the Atlantic, hoping for a new life in America, and a chance to forget. He finds that new life, but in a most unexpected and beautiful way.

This story is a fascinating inner journey from adolescence to manhood, from innocence to love. As I said, it is a hard story to read, but well worth the time and emotional turmoil. WWII history buffs will especially appreciate this tale, but this is a story everyone can appreciate and grow from.

http://www.amazon.com/Butterfly-Dream-Dave-Lara/dp/1460913442

Captain Harding’s Six-Day War by Elliott Mackle

2011-09-30T14:37:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Lethe Press
Pages: 248

In 1967, Captain Harding is working his way up the promotion ladder within the U.S. Air Force. He’s a go-getter with a head on his shoulders and a talent for fixing problems. He is also gay.

The story begins with Captain Harding arriving at his new assignment, the post of executive officer for Wheelus Air Force Base in Libya. It’s a bit of a disappointment for Harding, who knows that he needs a tour in Viet Nam on his record before his next promotion will be approved. His mood takes a nosedive when he realizes his real assignment is baby-sitting the base wing commander, a loose-cannon named Colonel Adger. Harding is stuck taking care of administrative details while Adger constantly flies off to play golf with the bigwigs.

Captain Harding is on base for less than a week before he is bedding and enlisted medic and a rather studly major. Harding makes it clear that he likes to play the field, and is not the type of man to fall in love and be monogamous. And play the field he does, including going to a private party that turns into an all male orgy where he is the center of everyone’s attentions.

During his sexual adventures, he also strikes up a friendship with the American ambassador’s sixteen-year-old son. The two form an instant crush on each other, and Harding must wrestle with the ethical aspects of forming a relationship with a minor. The more his strong moral sense fights the idea, the deeper he falls for this lovely, precocious kid.

While dealing with a series of misadventures—including the murder of a gay serviceman, a flight-surgeon’s drug abuse, the death of his former lover in Viet Nam, and trying to protect a woman accused of being a lesbian because she refused to have sex with her superior officers—Harding must constantly protect himself from being exposed as a gay man. Three officers suspect him, and they attempt to out him at every turn.

In the run-up to Israel’s Six-Day War, a mob attacks the embassy in Tripoli, which takes Harding’s boss, Colonel Adger, over the edge and into madness. He steals a fighter jet and sets out to attack an Arab warship in order to force America into the war. To bring the colonel back safely and keep America out of the war, Harding must out himself while talking the colonel back to base. But can he do that? Can he throw his career away in order to save a man he loathes?

This is a rather compelling book that I have mixed feelings about. It is extremely well written, perfectly structured, and moves at a fast, exciting pace. Mackle captures a brusque voice that suits this military setting perfectly. There is conflict at every turn, and also tender moments.

Yet, I more than once felt I was being set up for something that the story failed to deliver. For instance: the opening pages describe the brutal murder of a young airman who was suspected of being gay. This seemed the perfect hook for a murder mystery, right? But then the story moves on and nothing else is said about the murder until the last twenty pages. I found it rather strange that a book that starts in such a way, simply drops that topic. There is no mention of an investigation, the resolution, nothing.

Then Harding’s last commanding officer, which Harding had some sort of sexual three-way relationship with, sends Harding a note threatening to expose the Captain. However, after the note, it also was dropped and nothing was done to deliver on the promise.

Lastly, the setting itself promised something grand, the Middle East leading up to the Six-Day War. I expected a rather smart, political thriller. Yet, the story focused on Harding’s sexual exploits and his efforts to keep them secret, along with his realization of deeper feelings for that special someone. I felt a bit disappointed that there were only a dozen or so pages that really delved into the war tensions.

Still, this is a compelling read. It is a very sexy story of finding love in the most unusual of places, and also a tale of battling bigotry to save yourself. The author does a brilliant job of defining the protagonists/antagonists. This is definitely a them-verses-us type story, and no matter how little or how much the reader likes Harding’s character, s/he cannot help but pull for him all the way to the last page.

The ending is a bit open ended, and very satisfying. Military buffs will especially appreciate this story, but it is a book that can be appreciated by all readers. It is a story that I can highly recommend.

http://www.elliottmackle.com/

Kaleidoscope by Anel Viz

2011-09-27T13:12:00.000-07:00

Publisher: Silver Publishing:
ISBN: 9781920501037
Reviewer: Victor J. Banis
4.75 stars out of 5.

Blurb: In these seven stories, the author explores people's shifting views of each other, of the images they project, and of themselves. Individuals fragment, the pieces fall into ever-changing patterns like bright confetti in the base of a kaleidoscope, and our ideas about sexuality color what we see.

My review:
This is an utterly unique – I can say without hesitation “fascinating”-- collection of stories and anecdotes, like nothing I’ve ever encountered before. It is certainly beautifully written and on the surface, at least, written with a great deal of insight into human behavior – but with a disclaimer in the author’s preface, in which he states that “We never truly know another person; we do not truly understand ourselves.” What the author presents here, then, is a never entirely reliable and often changing look at various situations in which various people find themselves, but, he warns us, “None of them are omniscient.” So, this collection is not about some vague “truth,” but rather about perceptions, and these changing perceptions are the kaleidoscope of his title. And the insights may not be insights at all, but erroneous perceptions.

It is both an intriguing conceit and at the same time somewhat distancing. When George, in Polygon, says, “No man would ever talk about the intimate details of his marriage bed with his buddies” which is patently untrue, since men do this all the time, is the author wrong? Or George? Or, maybe just this perception? Nothing, here, is necessarily what it seems – or, if I understand correctly, necessarily not what it seems either.

Well, there are worse sins for an author than ambiguity – Hamlet, anyone? Certainly the stories are thought provoking. And libido provoking as well. There is nothing, really, in the way of raw sexuality and yet sex permeates everything, either in its presence, or in its absence – although we’re not always quite sure if it is present—or absent. Still, these tales are, I should say, as much about sex in its various permutations, as they are about anything. But, sex in many different lights.

It’s worth mentioning that the author covers a lot of ground age-wise, too—teens and high school grads and seniors, and pretty much everything in between. Same with gender and (at least perceived) sexual orientation. It seems, when one has finished, that there must be more than the seven stories the volume includes, but no, only seven, just with much to say.

Proteus is about a gay college professor in his late sixties, and a handsome young student who, we realize gradually, likes older men and is trying very hard to come on to him—but the prof insistently rebuffs the young man’s advances—he doesn’t like younger men and he’s not interested. He says. But, what to make of this passage, which hardly exemplifies disinterest: With Bramson sitting almost directly in front of him, Edmund had a ringside view of the boy and his assets. His legs were a definite asset, muscular and shapely, his thighs big enough so the gym shorts dug into them when he bent his knees. They were looser around his hips, so his endowment did not fill them, but Edmund guessed it was fairly generous. The tank top hugged his upper body, outlining his pecs and nipples, and sometimes it rode up so you could see his navel. The muscles in his arms were very hard, and the hair in his armpits and what little he had on his arms and legs as blond as the hair on his head.
I found this story perhaps the most erotically charged of the collection.

In Roomies (this one more a collection of anecdotes than a story), two of the three young men who share a condo, Marty the swish and Denny the butch, go camping together:
Both felt that they shouldn't have sex; both wanted to. Marty was mostly concerned that if they did it would put a strain on their easy relationship back at the condo, not that there was much chance of them becoming lovers and Art ending up left out. Denny was too promiscuous for that. Anyway, Art had a boyfriend. Denny, on the other hand, was afraid that it would leave him feeling unsatisfied since he would want to flip-flop and Marty, a committed bottom, wouldn't.

Which seems straightforward enough—except that the author has already told us that this narrator, like all the others in the book, isn’t omniscient—this is just his take on things. Which is to say, maybe the boys did, and maybe they didn’t. How would he know? Just as in the real world, what happens and what someone tells you happened may not be the same thing.

In Photographic Memories, Tanner was seen leaving a bar with the man who supposedly murdered him. With his photographic memory, Kyle, who saw them leave together, would seem to be the perfect witness—except he isn’t sure if he saw the accused, or someone he knew from his own past. Those perceptions again.

Facing the Music offers us Joe and Max, who more or less stumble into a sexual relationship which quickly gets them in trouble with their homophobic church, and they are sent to a reindoctrination camp intended to make heterosexuals of them. It maybe works. Or maybe it doesn’t.

In Kevvy, we get, Rashomon style, three different versions of the same story about a trio of teens, mostly leading up to gay Kevin giving straight Arthur a blow job, seemingly at Arthur’s insistence. As the author puts it in his preface, “None of the versions of "Kevvy" is entirely accurate however, (Kevin's may have been, but we hear it from Cole, who editorializes heavily)”
Robbie, in Since the Reunion, is perceived by some as straight, by others as bi – and his own perception of himself varies—but, as the author points out, he may be as reluctant to reveal his true sexuality to the reader as he is to the two friends in the story.

So, what on earth is one to make of this? Comic Brother Dave Gardner was wont to say, “don’t tell me your doubts, I have enough doubts of my own, tell me something you believe.” There isn’t much here to believe, it seems. What is there to grab hold of, to anchor one to these people, their adventures? Maybe nothing. Which of course is entirely true to life.

The author is right in his premise that the ambiguity in these pieces reflects real life – it is true, we never really know ourselves, let alone one another. But the best writing—the best in any art—doesn’t merely mimic life, but illuminates it. Art is a mirror that we hold up to ourselves, in the hope that we will see ourselves in a different light—as when walking down a street, we catch a glimpse of ourselves in a store window, and both recognize ourselves, and see ourselves differently. Good writing, the best writing, functions as that store window.

Do I see myself in these windows? I see a lot of questions (is that really me?) mostly without answers, or where there seem to be answers, they quickly morph into another question.
Or maybe, the author is suggesting, the question is the answer?

Still, I found this collection intriguing and intelligent, and savored it mightily. Like everything else I’ve read from this author, it’s refreshingly different and I came away from it after two readings (and I suspect there will be many more) with much food for thought and with my sense of how things are somewhat roiled—which may have been exactly what the author intended. This is not—nor do I suppose it was intended to be—for everyone, but for the reader of a certain discernment, it affords considerable pleasure, if mostly of a reflective kind.

One thing cannot be disputed, however: the author’s prose is elegant beyond reproach, as clear and dry—and as bracing—as a good martini – which, perhaps, is the apt metaphor with which to end this review—I found myself shaken, not stirred.

http://anelviz.blogspot.com/

The Third Buddha by Jameson Currier

2011-09-19T20:29:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Chelsea Station Editions
Pages: 322

Ted Bridges, a twenty-something law student, drops out of school and moves to New York to look for his brother, Phillip (“Pup”) who disappeared the day the World Trade Center towers fell. Ted moves into Pup’s Chelsea apartment and tries to piece together his dead brother’s life. Both brothers are gay, but very different. Pup was out and loved to socialize, loved being gay. Ted is closeted and has had little to no sexual experience with other men. Through the process of living in his brother’s shadow, what starts as a search for his brother turns into a search for his own sexual identity. Learning about his sibling and what it means to be gay through Pup’s friends and ex-lovers, Ted, over a period of several months, becomes his own man living a gay lifestyle.

Half a world away in a different decade, two international journalists, Ari and Jim, travel in Afghanistan. They are separated after their vehicle explodes from a roadside bomb. Ari awakes with no memory. He is taken in by hill-tribe Muslims and, for a time, becomes one of them. Jim recovers in an army hospital, and later pulls strings in order to travel back into dangerous Taliban controlled Afghanistan to find his lover, Ari.

These are two very dissimilar stories, both about searching for a loved one, but still very different in character and nature. Ted’s story is told in first person, Ari and Jim’s story is told in third person. These tales are very loosely linked by a few minor characters who live in New York, friends of Pup.

Many stories I’ve read that swing between two or more different plots has one story that intrigues me, and the other doesn’t. The Third Buddha was no exception to this rule. I found Ted’s search to be poignant and fascinating. I felt his pain and confusion, and was pulling for him all the way through his wonderfully convincing character arc.

Jim and Ari’s story I found flat, overly predictable, and often tedious. Currier did a marvelous job of creating a realistic environment of war-torn Afghanistan, and the writing was certainly accomplished, but the author keeps the reader from getting too close to his characters in this part of the story. Currier constantly switches between Jim’s adventures, to Ari’s hardships, to flashbacks of their relationship before being separated (way too many flashbacks for my tastes). This constant fractured storytelling became frustrating. It felt to me like I was following the story from an altitude of ten-thousand feet when I wanted to be right there on the ground. It simply didn’t have the same intensity as Ted’s search for his brother. And the fact that it took no guesswork to figure out exactly what would happen didn’t help.

The title, “The third Buddha” refers to an archeological site in Afghanistan where scientists search for a giant statue of the Buddha. It is near this site where tribe’s people take in Ari. This search for the statue is used as a symbol of the ongoing pursuit for something bigger than ourselves. And, of course, that is what both these stories are about.

Jameson Currier is a talented writer who has created an important and thought-provoking book. These are credible characters who experience gut-twisting emotional hardships and victories. It is a book I can highly recommend, even if it doesn’t find a place on my “favorite’s” shelf.

http://www.jamesoncurrier.com/index.html

Woke up in a Strange Place by Eric Arvin

2011-09-15T18:19:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Victor J. Banis
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
ISBN 978-1-61581-795-5

Joe wakes up in a barley field with no clothes, no memory, and no idea how he got there. Before he knows it he’s off on the last great journey of his life. With his soul guide, Baker, and a charge to have courage from a mysterious, alluring and somehow familiar Stranger, Joe sets off through a fantastical changing landscape to confront his past.

The quest is not without challenges. Joe’s past is not always an easy thing to relive, but if he wants to find peace—and reunite with the Stranger he is so strongly drawn to—he must continue on until the end, no matter how tempted he is to stop along the way.

I confess that I found myself of two minds while reading this book, part of me quite enchanted and part of me – the writing coach part – perturbed by some bad writing habits, particularly in the first 20 or 30 pages. Indeed, I nearly stopped reading and tossed the book into my “No, thanks” pile.

Let me quickly say I’m glad I did not, because once we got past a slow start, the book turned out to be a magical and often highly original interpretation of the mythical journey for the truth, the hero quest.

So let me start by waxing eloquent on what is good—make that very good-- about the book. First, as I said already, it’s a fresh and original take on an oft used theme (though not so often in gay or m/m fiction). Joe, the protagonist, wakes up in what he thereafter insists on thinking of as Heaven, although his spirit guide, Baker, keeps insisting that this isn’t that, at least not in the sense that he perceives it.

And like all seekers after truth, Joe sets out on a journey, without really understanding where it is he’s headed. At the onset, Joe’s memory seems mostly to have vanished, but as he journeys, memories come back to him, he meets people from his past, some of them changed, some of them not, and he sees scenes from his life in a different light.

I can’t get into all of Joe’s adventures here, and I wouldn’t want to anyway. Following them for yourself, taking your own journey, is way more fun, and more instructive, too, but the author displays a vivid imagination, sometimes humorous, sometimes profound, and nearly always charming. It would be very difficult, for example, not to be enchanted by The City of Thought, where people fish in the clouds with crystal poles for dreams and ideas. I’d book a vacation there any day. What gay male wouldn’t enjoy a stopover with “the brethren,” a sort of Heavenly fraternity house peopled with all the drop-dead gorgeous men of one’s dreams, all super endowed, all there for nothing more than the joys of endless sex? Hey, it may not be what they sing about in Sunday school, but it sound pretty heavenly to me. You can have the golden slippers.

Not everything is brightness and light, of course, in this journey any more than in your own life. There are some dark patches, some genuinely scary interludes, and some painful lessons to be learned.

There is that slow start, however, and the problems I mentioned earlier, and while I can’t exactly do a blow by blow (and what would be the point, since the book is already published?) it would be unfair to the writer to mention them and not provide a few examples of what I mean. Anyway, they are the sort of thing that a diligent writer can and should correct, which is to say it will benefit him in the longer run.

First, though, it will help if I explain that good fiction, short or long, is like a dream shared by the author and the reader. The author wants the reader to forget that he’s reading a book, and sink into the dream, experiencing it for himself. So, the cardinal sin for the author is anything that jars the reader out of the dream, reminding him this isn’t real, it’s only a book.

That is why, however clever it makes the author feel, this is not the time to show off one’s impressive vocabulary. The reader may be impressed, but he will also be jarred out of the dream. Even if he doesn’t jump up and rush to the dictionary, it will still give him pause to come across a word that makes him puzzle. Anyway, if he has no clue what “aureate grass” is, you’ve wasted your description. When given a choice between fancy, scholarly words or phrases, or the common language of everyday, choose the everyday. Most of your readers will be everyday people, and they will stay entranced, as you want them.

Victorian writers were fond of addressing the reader directly: “Little did she know, dear reader, when she climbed the stairs…” The author doesn’t do a lot of this, but phrases like “he could remember nothing of before, our hero…” smack of Victoriana. Remember the dream – when you are addressing your reader directly, you are reminding him this is only a book, a story you’re telling him, and not something he’s living as he reads it.

And there’s a lot of just plain old-fashioned overwriting. When Baker extends his hand to Joe, “…it secured a tight grip around Joe’s own…” It would be much simpler and clearer if he just took Joe’s hand in a tight grip, wouldn’t it? Or, when Baker “took a bite from his apple, first remembering to remove the cigarette that still hung from his lip…” I suspect most readers wouldn’t imagine him chomping on cigarette and apple together, but if the cigarette must be dispensed with, couldn’t the horse go before the cart?

Also, the book goes on a bit too long after the real story –which would be Joe’s journey—is ended. There’s an art in knowing when to bring down the curtain. No matter how clever what you add in after that point, it’s doing handstands just to show the reader you can do them. Save that for the lawn party when the book comes out.

Okay, yes, nitpicking, and I wouldn’t bother if I didn’t think the author had a genuine talent – but talent alone is not enough. If a writer wants to get better, he must work at his craft as well. The real problem with these problems is that they are first-book mistakes, and this is not a first book—which raises the question, is the author learning? Or content to slide along? Now, I do know that not every writer wants to get better at it. There are those who really aren’t interested in getting good, just in getting successful – they are two different goals, and don’t always go together. This author is good enough, however, that I can’t help thinking he will want to do better. I hope so.

Still, this is a delightful book, one that I think most readers will enjoy aplenty. And, yes, you will probably guess before he gets there where it is Joe is journeying to. Or perhaps not even journeying to, since the author is offering an alternate universe in which all the logical rules needn’t apply—which is to say, maybe he’s already there, maybe always was, just not conscious of it. I am reminded of Stephen Levine’s description of the desired state of being: “Nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to be.” Which, maybe, is what Heaven means.

Simple Treasures by Alan Chin

2011-09-09T13:10:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Victor Banis
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Pages: 136

Only the mediocre artist is always at his best – this is why we rightly judge an artist on the body of his work rather than on a single sample – we may just have gotten the wrong sample, that particular book when the writer’s aim surpassed his reach. It happens, but only to the true artist.

I’m happy to say that this time the goal was not beyond the artist’s reach. Simple Treasures couldn’t be a more fitting title for this offering from one of the best writers in the arena today, Alan Chin – because this is indeed a treasure, though writing this good is never really as simple as it looks. Here, as in his best work (but no, of course, not every time) the author goes beyond the confines of writing and enters the realm of art, and his genre is made the richer for it. As both a writer and a reader, I came away from this tale feeling that my experience—of life, of literature - had been greatly enhanced.

The title character, Simple, is a Shoshone. He has just been released from a mental hospital, where he has been abused essentially for the crime of being different. He is offered a job by Lance Bishop in the town of Saint George, Utah. Bishop’s father, Emmett, is an irascible drunk who has driven away every other caregiver – but in fact, Lance wants his father kept drunk. He plans to have his father committed and take control of the ranch, which he means to sell to developers. At first, Emmett rejects Simple’s overtures as well, but he soon recognizes a kindred spirit. There is a romance, too, between Simple and Emmett’s gothic-gay grandson, Jude.

Emmett is dying of cancer, and the ever present vultures roosting atop the barn provide a Greek-chorus reminder of imminent death. It was his wife’s death that sent Emmett into this long, downward spiral of grief and self-pity. Simple’s memory is dead, too—or as he himself explains it, his memory gets flushed clean each night. And Lance is dead to the pleasures of life or the soul. Even Jude is infected, convinced that for him there is no Life for him here, in this town--that Life exists elsewhere, in San Francisco to which he plans to escape.

But that is only the story as told by the words. The real story is written between the lines, and it is about nothing less than the encroachment of death, and the reaffirming of life, through love, through dignity, and the oneness of all existence. A man becomes a memory, a falcon becomes a man, and love bridges the illusory abyss that separates us one from the other. And how magically the author weaves his story, painting indelible pictures from nothing more, it seems, than mere wisps of smoke.

Deep in the human body—yours, mine, everybody’s—there is just one soul that we all share, as if we’re just tiny pieces of the same puzzle…That’s why we’re here in the first place, to make our sliver of the soul shine like the sun.

Chin doesn’t write erotica, but it would be a colder heart than mine that wouldn’t melt sharing Jude and Simple’s “first date” – fishing in Bitter Creek.

Simple’s pole jerked toward the water. “Jesus, I’ve got one.” He hauled the pole back to set the hook.
“Give him line,” Jude said. “Play him.”
Simple leaned out over the water, retrieving line.
With a wicked giggle, Jude shoved Simple, who tumbled into the water and was swept downstream, still holding the rod high over the water. Laughing, Jude ripped off his hat and boots and flung himself into the water. He was swept along, fighting his way toward Simple.
They met in the swirling water and pumped their legs until they stood in the shallows. They shared a sensual hug and kiss. When they broke apart, Simple held up a trout…

Simple sets out to help Emmett transcend his looming death by restoring his dignity and by transferring his spirit into the body of a falcon, and the story climaxes in a stunning ceremony in which man and falcon battle for supremacy while Simple dances and chants himself into an exhausted stupor.

Simple began to dance again. His feet stomped the ground with the same rhythm that Emmett had pounded out with his cane. He chanted and his voice grew in volume…the wind died. Everything went silent—even the crickets hushed—as if the universe were holding its breath. A minute later, the bird shrieked. In the distance, the sound of the wind drifting through the trees grew into a steady pulse, like the slow beating of a heart.

The author occasionally slips into the habit of repeating words where a different word would work better—and although I’m not generally in favor of censorship, I think the writing world would be better for having the word “then” banned from usage by all penmen. And he has developed a tendency to slide into melodrama, which is simply not his forte. Happily, that is minimal here.

Never mind. This is a stunningly beautiful literary effort. In the end, I cannot tell you if the story is a good or a bad one – those are intellectual considerations, but this is not a story told from or to the intellect, it is told from the heart. As Simple tells the old man, Some things can’t be talked about. Words only confuse it.

http://tinyurl.com/3hfajkf

Young Love, Too Soon Gone By Nowell Briscoe

2011-09-08T13:20:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Victor J. Banis
Publisher: MLR Press

A bittersweet tale of, yes, young love, from a refreshing new voice in the genre of gay fiction.

Jack, the narrator, picks his story up more or less in the middle, when young Max sends him a note asking to see him. They meet at a pizza parlor, and as they chat, the story gradually unfolds of the young lovers, Max and Zach – how they met as boys, how friendship became passion and ultimately love – but a star crossed love that ends in a tragedy.

The story does not end with the tragedy, however, as the author cleverly carries us not only backward in time, but forward as well, and gives us, if not a happy ending, one with the promise of happiness to come.

I don’t want to spoil the story by giving too much away, and since the plot is a fairly uncomplicated one, there’s not much I can say about how the early story develops. Suffice to say that the tragedy springs from a family’s blindness to a son’s sexual reality and their insistence on some kind of “normalcy.”

Interestingly, the author manages to create a lot of sexual tension without a lot of sexual activity. To be sure, he and Max share with one another memories of some explicit experiences in the past, but the real sexual tension comes from the attraction that Jack feels for Max and which it appears is reciprocal, and this tension mounts when the pair go from the restaurant to Jack’s apartment to finish their conversation. Neither of them, however, seem to know quite what to do about their attraction—if it is even mutual, and like Jack, we’re never entirely sure of that--and the reader comes away from the scene thinking that after all maybe it was better that they let the moment pass.

What makes this story enjoyable beyond its barebones is the sincerity with which it’s told. One gets a sense that this is something more than a work of fiction, a feeling that the author is simply sharing with his readers his own touching experience. The characters are true to life, and one almost imagines he is in the room with them listening to them talk. I think most of us, like the narrator, have been in those situations where we thought there was a mutual attraction, but we weren’t entirely sure, or weren’t sure how to make anything happen. What makes this work so well is that, just as in real life, we aren’t entirely certain if the other person is feeling the same or if we are just misreading the signals. Make a move, or not? Will I only end up making a fool of myself? Surely we’ve all been there a time or two.

This author also writes a series of columns for his hometown (Monroe, Georgia) newspaper, a series of reminiscences of growing up there, which I have been fortunate enough to read, and the writing in this story is in very much the same voice, more a conversational one than a literary one.

Which only adds to the sense of verity, as if you were catching a glimpse, through a window, of real life. Whatever flaws this story has, it has the great virtue of believability. It rings true, and that is not an easy thing for any writer to accomplish. Hats off to Nowell Briscoe for this, his debut story.

http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=NB_YLTSG

Book Review: A Hundred Little Lies by Jon Wilson

2011-09-01T07:22:00.001-07:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Cheyenne Publishing
Pages: 211

Jack Tulle owns and runs the general store in the sleepy town of Bodey, Colorado. He and his eight-year-old daughter live above the store. For years he has played the doting father, honest businessman, member of the town council, and pillar of the community. He is respected and admired by all.

But then the local saloon announces plans to hold a professional poker tournament that boasts an impressive grand prize. It is sure to draw the West’s elite card players, which could cause Jack Tulle to loose everything he cares about. You see, for eight years Jack has been living a lie, and lies are like termites, where there is one, there is a whole nest. Lies multiply and build on themselves until you’re standing on a rickety platform that could collapse at the slightest gust of wind. And this poker tournament could prove to be a hurricane for Jack.

The author very cleverly reveals Jack’s hundred little lies one or two at a time. The first reveal comes in the form of Tom Jude, a card shark that Jack used to run with. When Tom shows up a few days before the tournament, the two are reunited and the reader realizes they were more than friends, they were—and still are—in love with each other. After some fairly hot sex, the reader finds they were more than lovers, they were partners-in-crime. Both men were card cheats, con men, and always available for an opportune swindle. They were hard drinking, hard fighting scoundrels.

As more old “business acquaintances” come into town for the tournament, Jack finds himself scrambling to maintain his deception by piling on more lies to the town’s folk. But of course the more lies that accumulate, the more truths that are uncovered. And the reader discovers that at the bottom of the heap are some truths that are much worse than cheating at cards and the odd swindle. Jack is hiding something that could send him to prison, perhaps even the hanging tree. He knows he should simply leave town until everything blows over, but he can’t abide leaving Tom Jude again.

And of course Tom Jude has his own secrets, and Jack feels compelled to get to the bottom of them before it’s too late.

This is a funny, moving, delightful romance. What struck me most is the enchanting voice the narrator takes on, reminiscent of Mark Twain, which adds so much pleasure to the experience. The story is skillfully crafted, and because it takes place over just a few days time, the author goes into delicious detail with each scene.

Because of that detail, the reader is able to drill down into the many layers of the main characters and also the secondary characters. As the layers are pealed away, the tensions rise, making Jack and Tom arc, that is, develop as characters, making this a well-rounded and very satisfying story.

In poker terms, this book is an ace-high straight flush; only it’s anything but straight. It is an exceptional debut novel by a writer everyone should keep on their radar screen. I can highly recommend this story to all readers.

http://cheyennepublishing.com/books/lies.html

Like Lovers Do by Lori L. Lake

2011-08-26T10:01:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Yellow Rose Books
Pages: 194

Kennie McClain is a security guard/handy person at a Portland apartment complex. Unbeknownst to her tenants at the Allen Arms, she also owns the building. She is still in recovery mode from the loss of her lover three years prior, but she also has eyes for the sexy artist, Lily Gordon, who rents the entire top floor for an art studio.

Lily is beautiful, stylish, and a nationally-acclaimed painter. She also has a hard-as-nails, detective girlfriend who will stop at nothing to protect her relationship with Lily.

A series of events lead Kennie into Lily’s bed for a night of blissful lovemaking, which opens Kennie’s heart for the first time in years. Kennie’s emotions begin to bud, but then Lily’s girlfriend steps back onto the scene to nip that relationship before it can blossom. Kennie is thrown back into her protective shell and struggles to deal with her disappointment.

When things look bleakest for Kennie, Max, an abused teen, comes into Kennie’s life, and she finds herself in a nurturing role. Within this new role, Kennie shows both the reader and Lily the goodness of her soul. But will it be enough to win back Lily?

I don’t often get a chance to read f/f fiction, so this was a treat for me. Like Lovers Do is a well written, detailed study of loneliness and longing, and a potent lesson in the Karmic message that good things eventually rain down on good people, but only if they maintain their goodness through a period of drought. This story is heart-warming and uplifting, and what makes it so is the multi-layered depths of the characters Lori Lake has skillfully crafted. The author made me care about the characters, compelled me to pull for the protagonists and despise the antagonists.

There were several questions I had about the story that were never answered to my satisfaction. For instance, I never understood why Kennie kept the fact that she owned the building a secret from her tenants. It made no sense to me, and if it was explained, then I missed it. None of these types of questions kept me from enjoying the story, however.

Although there is a lot of story packed into these pages, the author does not hurry. The story moves at a leisurely, measured pace and offers enough detail to paint vivid pictures of each scene.

This is a story that will appeal not only to fans of f/f, but also to all readers who enjoy a heart-warming romance. I can highly recommend Like Lovers Do.

http://www.lorillake.com/

Moffie by Andre Carl van der Merwe

2011-08-19T08:40:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Europa Editions
Pages: 364

Like every gay boy in 1970s South Africa, Nicholas van der Swart must hide that part of himself that is different from other boys, especially from his father. Nicholas grew up fearing his tyrannical father, an abusive Afrikaner devoted to apartheid and all things manly. And Nick grew up being ashamed of himself, thinking he was an abomination against God.

Nick is conscripted into two years of mandatory army life when he turns nineteen years old. The military goes against everything Nick feels at his core. He is a pacifist, but the lure of freeing himself from an oppressive home life helps him cope with the reality of becoming a soldier fighting for a cause he doesn’t believe in.

But Nick finds that the nightmare of living at home is nothing compared to the hell of boot camp. Within his company, he is labeled a Moffie (a queer), and his superiors stop at nothing to destroy him. At the same time, he makes three close friendships, and even falls in love. Nick finds that the one thing that is more terrible than the physical abuse he endures every day, is the mental torcher of not being able to tell his close buddies and the person he loves what he really feels for them. He must keep that secret locked deep in his heart, or risk being shipped off to a mental hospital for shock, drug and hormone treatments.

After boot camp, Nick and his friends are shipped to the boarder where South Africa is at war with Angolan terrorist. On the battlefield, Nick learns a valuable lesson: to not ask God to help him, but merely to put his life in God’s hands, become an instrument of the Almighty, and accept God’s will. Within the depths of this military torture, bloodshed and his new religious faith, Nick is able to acknowledge his homosexuality and come out to the men he cares for. His coming out somehow helps him find the strength to survive.

I found it hard to believe that Moffie is Andre Carl van der Merwe’s debut novel. This is a powerful, emotional, well-written gem. This author writes with all the polish of a seasoned professional.

The story grabbed my gut on page one and didn’t let go. It starts with the protagonist fighting a hopeless and heartbreaking home situation, then the reader watches Nick’s life disintegrate from there as he free-falls deeper and deeper into hell. The reader shares his anguish, and craves revenge against an unjust world. And just when it seems that Nick has reached the lowest level of purgatory, the reader realizes there are deeper regions yet to discover.

I did have two minor issues with this story. First, I felt the author relied too heavily on clichés. It starts with a rather cliché battle between a gay teenaged son and the hard stoic father who wants his boy to go into the service so they will make a man of him. The mother, of course, is overly protective—more cliché—followed by the company Sergeant who takes a disliking to the hero and tries to break him. It’s all been done so many times before.

My second issue is that sprinkled throughout the storyline are numerous flashbacks to the protagonist’s childhood to demonstrate the battles and hardships of his development. I felt most of these flashbacks added little or nothing to the story, and were a distraction to the main storyline.

Both of these issues are easily overlooked. This is a tale of survival, of love, and of finding the light of courage when the world is pitch black. The story is not for the faint of heart. If you are looking for a pleasant beach read, then keep looking. Moffie is a gritty, brutal, poignant, gut-twisting read, and the reader will surely feel a euphoric sense of accomplishment upon completing that last chapter as the writer skillfully lifts the reader back into the light.

This is a somber drama that I thoroughly enjoyed, and can highly recommend to serious readers.

http://www.andrecarlvandermerwe.com/

Rite of Passage by Bryl R. Tyne

2011-08-11T08:33:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Pages: 80

John Ashley Price is a celebrity author who has gone into hiding to escape the constant hounding from paparazzi and fans. He wants to become an island unto himself where he can write in peace and not have a soul in the world who knows who or what he is. His publisher, Carol, finds him the perfect getaway within the forested mountains of Colorado—a hick town named Divide.

Alone at his mountain retreat, John finds that his constant companion, extreme anxiety, refuses to leave him in peace. He must still take a regiment of pills to control his mood swings, and he finds he has a merciless case of writer’s block. On top of all that, he finds his cabin is not as remote as he anticipated. There is a neighbor within a stone’s throw, and the neighbor turns out to be just the kind of man that twirls John’s skirt—Mid-twenties, handsome, muscular, a silent cowboy type.

To pass the time and to do research for his next novel, John volunteers his time to help out at the local wild animal clinic. He does odd jobs but his real purpose is to research wolves and their habitat. What he finds instead is that he is being studied by the clinic foreman, Pat Smith. Then a series of strange coincidences unravel John’s new world, beginning with John discovering that Pat is in fact his sexy neighbor. John soon realizes there is some kind of plot afoot, but what could it be?

This story is a fun, romantic romp that had me smiling throughout and often laughing out loud. Neither the story nor the characters are overly complex, but it doesn’t matter. This is a fast paced, delightfully sexy tale.

What I loved most was the voice the author was able to capture and maintain. It has a Western twang, rough around the edges, yet reads smooth as silk. It described even mundane things in the most humorous ways. This is a funny story, without being slapstick or stupid, and yes, there is enough romance to warm your heart and enough sex to get your blood pumping.

Admittedly, there is no mystery here. The plot was pretty clear early on, but again it doesn’t matter. It is the delivery that makes this a fun and sexy read. Bryl R. Tyne is a huge talent. I can highly recommend this novella to all readers.

http://bryltyne.com/

The Abode of Bliss by Alex Jeffers

2011-08-06T08:20:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Lethe Press
Pages: 265

In a series of ten remarkable short stories, Ziya explains his erotic journey into manhood to Adam, the man Ziya loves. Raised in cosmopolitan Istanbul, Ziya is immersed in his Muslim family and traditions, yet he harbors a secret that goes against everything he knows. He is gay. His mother understands, and arranges for Ziya to attend college in the United States, where he will enjoy an easier time of being accepted and be free to live his life without pressure from family or religion.

Ziya’s journey takes him from Istanbul, through Europe, and finally to Boston where he tries to assimilate a new lifestyle, yet, he keeps being drawn back into his culture. This is a long and beautiful journey. Along the way Ziya encounters old friends, surprises from family members, one-night stands, rape, weddings and bashings and deaths, and in the end a chance meeting.

These ten stories are told in chronological order and build on each other, making this book read like a novel. This is nearly a perfect read. What struck me most was the intricate detail of a young, Muslim man’s life in Turkey, and how cultural pressures make it difficult to assimilate to life in the U.S. But this is more than a story of culture clash. It is an in-depth study of a young man’s sexual education, which delves deeply into his being. Alex Jeffers lavishes exhaustive detail onto the page, uncovering layer after layer of both the characters and the culture, yet with such beautifully crafted prose that it is a pleasure—an exquisite dream you don’t want to wake from—rather than being tedious.

The pace of Ziya’s introspective excursion toward his sexuality is slow and concise. As Ziya ponders his attitudes, so does the reader. This is a book that makes the reader examine his/her own values as Ziya examines his. It makes you think, scrutinize, weigh. This is not a light romp for lazy readers who merely want to be entertained. It is not a book for everyone. It is a detailed study of an inner journey of one man that spans multiple countries and cultures. I suspect readers will either love it or be bored to tears. As you can tell, I loved it.

I’ve long believed that Alex Jeffers is a remarkable talent. I regard The Abode of Bliss as his most impressive work to date. This is a book I will read, savor, again and again. I highly recommend this book to everyone who loves finely crafted prose, lush descriptions and gratifyingly deep characters.

http://www.sentenceandparagraph.com/

Haji’s Exile  by Alan Chin

2011-07-31T17:49:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Cole at Reviews by Jessewave
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Genre: Western, Horses 
Length: Short Story (8k words) 
Rating: 4.75 stars out of 5

Review Summary: It may not end with an HEA or HFN, but this short story of young and naive love by Alan Chin is beautiful nonetheless.

BLURB
Nathan has cared for horses all his life, but Haji is the first he’ll train on his own. When the Arabian stallion arrives at Bitter Coffee Ranch, Nathan thinks he is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. And then he lays eyes on Haji’s handler, Yousef. Nathan has much to learn about horses, about pride, and about love, but with the ranch’s hopes riding on Haji, he’ll also learn that all things have their price.

A Bittersweet Dreams title: It’s an unfortunate truth: love doesn’t always conquer all. Regardless of its strength, sometimes fate intervenes, tragedy strikes, or forces conspire against it. These stories of romance do not offer a traditional happy ending, but the strong and enduring love will still touch your heart and maybe move you to tears.

REVIEW
I’ve long been a fan of Alan Chin’s. His words seem to melt of the page and flow through me as I’m reading. His prose is often decadently smooth, with a rolling gait. So it is in his latest story, and aptly, as the story deals with the training of a particularly proud and regal horse.

Nathan is a recent high school graduate who, after falling on hard times, is taking the pace of his father’s foreman and taking over the training of the family’s race horses. The story begins as he sees their newest buy arrive on the ranch — Haji. The beautiful sorrel is from North Africa and brings with him a stable boy, Yousef. Both are thrilling and exotic to Nathan, and as he grows into his responsibilities and his own awareness of his life, so do both of them grow with him, one on the track and one in his bed and as his newfound love. Add to that the harshness of life in Nevada and the racial inequality of the time (which is unmentioned, but could be recent historical or contemporary), and the situation becomes somewhat complicated.

The best part of this story is the beautiful prose. Alan Chin has a way of matching the prose to the story and here I often found the prose very musical, with a tempo that matched whatever action the horse is making at that time in the story — a rolling gait, or the ferocious pounding beats of stampeding horses. Also, I found that the most interesting character of any in the story was in fact the horse, Haji. His story is a parallel to Yousef’s. Though we know very little about Yousef (as does Nathan), we can understand him because Nathan understands horses more than people, and as such can understand Haji. He brings together the two characters, and in the end brings about their separation (you know I won’t say more than that, but it is a Bittersweet Dreams title).

A lovely horse is always an emotional experience for me, the kind that is spoiled by words. All my life I have often talked about horses — hell, most of the time I seem to talk of nothing else — but I have never been able to unravel my love of them using the commonplace adjectives of my limited vocabulary. To me they are a beautiful dream, to be admired but not scrutinized, lest they disappear before I can voice the words.

This is a story of young love, the period that is on the cusp of true adulthood, where your awareness of the world tilts to such an alarming degree. Many things can bring that change about and here it is the awakening of love for another man after Nathan’s whole childhood purely spend on his love of horses. They help him understand the change in his life, and through them they also help him see his naivete when he feels that first sting and the first touch of the coldness in the world.

More than anything, though, this story is really about the love of animals, and how they can define and explain the things in our lives, or help us change them:

I believe with all my fiber that until a man has loved an animal, a large part of his soul remains unawakened.

The Bittersweet Dreams titles from Dreamspinner are certainly not for everyone, and this story won’t be either. I won’t deny that the ending made me quite sad, but I’m also a realist, and I think that Alan Chin does a wonderful job with this story in portraying the shift between the idealistic adolescent and the reasoning adult. At the same time, the story is beautifully written and offers much more than the ending of a love affair. Definitely recommended.

http://tinyurl.com/3wq85k7

Shattered Wings by Bryan Healey

2011-07-22T07:13:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: CreateSpace (April 29, 2011)
Pages: 249

John is confident, a bit cocky, and happy with his life. He and his lover, Charlie, are proud parents of a darling little girl. Charlie is a stay-at-home daddy while John brings home the bacon with his mid-level management position in an IT department. John is living the dream in their lovely suburban home. The only thing missing is the sheepdog.

And then an unexpected layoff shows John just how fragile a foundation his perfect life is built on. John’s search for a new job brings only emotional strain. He spirals into despair, which triggers a relapse into alcoholism, lies, and deceit. All it will take to recover his dream is a job—any job—but can he find one in this down economy before he loses everything?

I had a love/hate relationship with this novel. The story itself is simply terrific. It’s like watching a train wreck from close up, and knowing that at any moment the whole damned thing could explode, but there is nothing you can do, not even pull your eyes away. It is a gripping story, and John is a compelling character. He’s both sympathetic and pathetic at the same time, making all the wrong moves for comprehensible reasons.

This is a detailed study of a man slowly disintegrating. He keeps grasping for help, but at every turn, people turn their back on him until he is pushed beyond his endurance. It is a sad story, and bitterly real. I would love to award this tale a five-star rating, but I can’t overlook the numerous issues that annoyed me.

This story desperately needs a competent editor with a large red pen. The writing—with numerous typos, misspellings, bad punctuation, switching from past tense to present and back, and repeated phrases—make this one of the worst written books I’ve seen in print. The writing continually pulled me out of the story, and tainted an otherwise compelling read. It is the curse of self-publishing, and why I generally shy away from writers who publish their own work.

Although John’s character has significant depth, the other characters in the story have little or no depth at all. I kept wanting them to show more of themselves, but that didn’t happen. In defense of the author, this story is told by John in first person, and he is totally self absorbed through most of the story. Yet, I wanted more.

There is one other issue I’ll mention. It seems that half of the book is told in flashbacks. There is a pattern where every four or five pages the author cuts from the current storyline to give several pages of backstory. Back and forth, back and forth. My issue is that too many flashbacks kept breaking the rhythm of the current story. Normally I could overlook that, except that in this case most of these flashbacks did little or nothing to advance the storyline. They seemed to slow the story down for no reason.

My opinion is that this book is not ready for prime time. With significant editing, the rounding out of some characters and the deletion of several flashbacks, this could be a fantastic read.

http://www.amazon.com/Shattered-Wings-Bryan-Healey/dp/1456398350

Harlan’s Race by Patricia Nell Warren

2011-07-12T10:24:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Wildcat Press
Pages: 325

Years after the shooting death of Billy Sive, Harlan Brown is faced with the arduous task of coming to terms with the loss of his lover. While trying to be a father to Billy’s son, Vince Matti (Billy’s best friend) drifts back into Harlan’s life, and the two struggle to form a troubled relationship. Each person in Harlan’s life—Billy’s son, Vince, Billy’s Father—keeps Harlan tied to his tragic past.

Then the unthinkable happens. Another shooting at another race, followed by a note from the shooter letting Harlan know that the shooter is stalking him. Harlan hires two gay, Rambo-like bodyguards, and their investigation reveals that the killer pursuing Harlan was also involved with Billy’s murder. Harlan goes into hiding, but finds himself constantly looking over his shoulder, waiting for the next bullet.

If all this weren’t bad enough for Harlan, it’s the late ‘70s and he finds that many of his friends are dying of a mysterious new disease that is affecting gay men. Caught between a tragic past that won’t let go of him and a future that holds only death and sorrow, Harlan Brown must find a way to survive the violence and challenges of changing times.

Harlan’s Race is Patricia Nell Warren’s long awaited sequel to The Front Runner.
The author mentions in the forward that she intends to write a third installment in the story featuring Falcon, Billy’s son, when he reaches his teens. Harlan’s Race is a dark bridge between Billy’s and Falcon’s stories.

This is a very dark and moody story. With Billy’s death haunting Harlan, and nothing to look forward to but the AIDS epidemic, there is little to feel good about here. The plot follows Harlan, Vince and others, as they all seem to self-destruct after Billy’s death.

Although the book is superbly written, I closed the book feeling disappointed. This is a murder mystery where the stalker/murderer is revealed at the end, and it is meant to be a shocking disclosure. I, however, figured out who the murderer was halfway through the story, so the ending fell flat for me. Not only was it flat, much of the plot felt too contrived to be believable. Although I must say that there were moments in the romantic bond between Harlan and Vince that were touching and rang true.

Although Harlan’s Race can be read without reading The Front Runner, I think that would be a mistake. Harlan’s character is well developed, but many of the supporting cast are not, and one needs to read TFR as background to these characters in order to fully appreciate the depth of this story.

I have enjoyed reading several Patricia Nell Warren books and think she is a terrific talent, but Harlan’s Race is not a book I can highly recommend. I am, however, looking forward to reading the third book in the series, Billy’s Boy.

http://wildcatintl.com/press.cfm

Song On The Sand by Ruth Sims

2011-07-06T08:08:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Pubisher: Untreed Reads Publishing
Pages: 19

Tony Dalby is a wheelchair-bound man living his twilight years in a convalescent home. In his youth he had been a Broadway actor/dancer. Now he is a bitter, self-centered, irascible, old man with nothing to look forward to. He keeps his life history in a scrapbook—grainy photographs, letters, newspaper clippings, keepsakes. The staff at the home try to get him to stand, to walk, but he hasn’t the heart to even try during his therapy sessions.

But then Tony notices a sexy young man who shows up daily to visit Jesse, the victim of an accident that has left him a vegetable. After several days of admiring the young man from a distance, a chance encounter allows Tony to meet this young man, whose name is, Drew. Tony discovers that Drew and Jesse are lovers.

Driven to impress young Drew, Tony puts all his heart and soul into his therapy sessions, and over time gets to the point where he can walk with the help of only a cane. But then, for the first time in ages, he begins to think about someone other than himself. He tries to help Drew’s lover recover. As it turns out, Jesse and Tony had both acted in the musical, La Cage Aux Folles. This thin thread, they soon discover, has the power to turn tragedy into an unexpected joy.

Ruth Sims is one of my favorite writers, and once again she has managed to impress. This is a bittersweet tale of finding courage and compassion. It is beautifully written, almost flawless in its execution. The main character is completely believable, and lures the reader into his narrow view of the world, but then lets his world expand, giving both the character and the story greater depth.

Often times I can see where a story is going long before the last page, but throughout this tale I kept wondering how the author could possibly wrap up all these threads. Sim’s did so in a way that was both surprising and delightful. When I finished the last page, I sat in silence for a rather long time, not analyzing what I had read, but simply feeling the wonderful emotions that this story evoked.

Ruth Sims is a huge talent. And Song On The Sand is a little gem that I highly recommend to all readers.

http://ruthsims.com/

The Last Deployment by Bronson Lemer

2011-06-24T14:26:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press (June 2011)
Pages: 221

How a Gay, Hammer-Swinging Twentysomething Survived a Year in Iraq

Bronson Lemer joined the National Guard during his senior year of high school as a way to help pay for his upcoming college expenses, but he also had a secret reason for joining. For years he had lived in the shadow of his more athletic brothers, and because Bronson was gay, he felt the need to do something dramatic to prove to his parents that he was his own man. He wanted to make the family proud of him. He chose the National Guard because he assumed he could do his one weekend a month and never be sent to war. He was wrong.

In 2003, after being trained as a carpenter and serving five and a half years in the North Dakota National Guard’s engineering unit, Bronson was deployed in Iraq for a year. He left behind college, his family, and a lost love. He found himself in a war zone that he and his fellow soldiers called ‘The Sand Box’ – living in tents, sand everywhere you looked, 120 degree temperatures, and constant apprehension about the impending dangers.

Bronson spent a year in and around Bagdad using his carpentry skills to help rebuild the city. He had a deep conviction to aid the Iraqi people, but the longer his deployment stretched out, the more he felt the US military was doing more harm than good. On a more personal level, he struggled because of a lack of support structure. He didn’t have the close family ties, a wife or long-time girlfriend that most other soldiers had. He felt a need to reveal his sexuality to his buddies, so that they would understand him. But, of course, he couldn’t do that. His only release was in the form of letters to his lost love.

The Last Deployment is a well-written, often provocative memoir of the author’s struggle to reconcile military brotherhood with self-acceptance.
If you are looking for gun battles and roadside bombs ripping limbs from bodies, then you should keep looking. The author never came under fire. This is a tale of internal struggle and the absurd nuances of a soldier’s life in the ‘Sand Box’. It is more about loneliness, fear and fitting in than guns and battles.

The author spent very little time talking about the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. I recall only one place where he summed up his views about it as: The policy creates an environment where it is OK to ridicule someone because of their sexuality because gay men and women cannot stick up for themselves or others without fear of being ostracized and outcast, and that is the last thing a soldier wants during a deployment. The policy reinforces ignorance and stupidity by forcing the people who are gay—the ones who would speak up and support gay men and women when others were ridiculing them—to keep their mouths shut. It also stifles a community that cannot grow, trust, or support each other because some of the members aren’t allowed to speak up or express who they are.

Being a gay man who spend four years in the navy, I was also surprised that Lemer didn’t talk about falling in love/lust with any of his fellow soldiers. That was one of the hardest things for me to deal with while in the military: feeling love for my buddies but being unable to divulge it in any way. What Lemer does express repeatedly was a feeling of not fitting in, mainly because he had to hide so much of himself. Now that was something I related to perfectly.

Lemer's chronicles of a soldier’s daily life in the ‘Sand Box’ make for an interesting and poignant read. It is also a strong argument why the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy harms morale, rather than doing any good. Regardless of how you feel about the war, this memoir is well worth reading. I can highly recommend it to all readers.

http://uwpress.wisc.edu/

Traveling Light by Lloyd Meeker

2011-06-13T18:11:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: MLR Press
Pages: 281

Ian McCandless is a gay hospice nurse in training to become shaman. On orders from his mentor, Ian goes home for the holidays to make peace with his estranged family. Ian’s brother, Will, picks him up at the airport, and the old conflicts bubble to the surface before they can exit the parking lot. On the way home, Will interrupts a convenience store robbery and is shot, dying in Ian’s arms. Ian vows to use his shaman powers to reap vengeance.

In 13th century Anasazi, another shaman apprentice, Ta-Kuat, is given the task of journeying through the spirit world, through time and space, to retrieve the magical Door Stone which will free his village from famine and will allow them to live and prosper.

As Ian enters the spirit world on his hunt for revenge – which is forbidden to shamans – he meets up with Ta-Kuat. Ian’s pursuit not only puts himself in conflict with the spirit world, but it also endangers Ta-Kuat. The two apprentices forge an unholy alliance in the spirit plane that has dangerous ramifications in the physical world.

Lloyd Meeker’s debut novel, Traveling Light, is a winner. This is one of the most delightful and imaginative stories I’ve read in years. This paranormal tale weaves time travel with dabbling in the spirit world, unique spirits who guide or hinder, and wise old shamans who expound spiritual wisdom without making it into a sermon. In short, it is a unique and absorbing read.

This is the story of two seekers who span both the spiritual realms and the physical world in order to find what they think will make them whole. Ian seeks justice for his dead brother. He searches for his brother’s spirit, and plans to harm his brother’s killer. What he doesn’t realize, and what his mentor must show him, is that, for a shaman, there is no such thing as justice. Ta-Kuat, on the other hand, seeks to save his people by finding the Door Stone. He travels time and space searching for something that doesn’t exist, because it was conjured in the mind of an impure soothsayer.

The two meet on the spirit plane, and are drawn together by a need to help the other, but then both are pulled into a growing love that spans supernatural dimensions. And yes, they manage to make love in both the physical and spiritual planes. “He couldn’t bear his own ecstasy, yet knew it without effort, just as he knew Ta-Kuat’s. They formed one being, one matrix of power, one undulating wave on the vastness that lifted them, drowning them. “

It is a complex plot played out on several levels. Between bouts of lovemaking, the apprentices must help each other unravel riddles and mysteries. They must battle internal emotions gone mad, and evil shamans. By the end, they uncover universal truths that each of us, in the empty and lonely parts of our lives, must confront. I walked away from this book feeling a little wiser. I don’t see how anybody wouldn’t.

My one minor issue is that I wanted the author to spend more time developing the supporting characters who appeared in the physical world. I was particularly keen on having both shaman teachers, Ang and Chiyuskanek, take a larger role in the story and reveal more of themselves.

That one issue aside, I felt this was a delightful and mystical journey, both for the characters and the reader. Utterly enjoyable. I can highly recommend this book to all readers who like to tickle their imaginations.

http://www.lloydmeeker.com

Slant by Timothy Wang

2011-06-05T15:51:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin

Publisher: Tincture (an imprint of Lethe Press)
Pages: 211

James, an Asian college student, thought coming out of the closet would be his toughest task. What he couldn’t foresee, but experienced head on, was the discrimination inside Boston’s gay community. The road to love is never easy, especially for a geeky Asian inside a sea of white, round-eyed faces.

After months of failures, James catches the guy of his dreams, Stan, but can only hang on to him for a few precious months. Stan is a man who lives on the edge and goes through boyfriends as fast as he goes through clean socks. Once the relationship slides from lovers to friends, James begins dating a doctor who has it all – hot car, glamorous flat, money to burn – in order to make Stan jealous and lure him back. But as I said, the road to love is never easy, or what you expect.

A wonderful debut novel… I must confess that I’ve grown tired of coming out stories, but this is not your typical coming out story. It has true depth, grace, and vividly drawn characters that entice the reader into this beautifully crafted yarn. It delves into the racism that is rampant in the gay community, and also of one person’s struggle to assimilate. The emotions and concerns are genuine, and carry the reader along.

The first half of the story focused more on discrimination Asians experience within the gay community. For James, this leads to self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy, and then grows into self-hate. The second half deals more with relationships and the needs of partners with a relationship.

What struck me even more than the insightful observations was the superlative writing. Timothy Wang tells a simple yarn with an unrivaled voice. Wang writes with the refinement of a seasoned professional.

I did have two minor issues with this story. The first came when James, after complaining bitterly about the discrimination directed at him for being Asian, shows that he is equally prejudice against rice queens – older men dating young Asians. As a gentleman of some years, I found James’s age discrimination a bit distasteful and thoroughly hypocritical.

My second issue is that I felt the ending fizzled. Wang kept both the tension and my interest high until the last ten pages, and then I closed the book feeling slightly let down. I’m not sure I would have preferred a different ending, but perhaps a bit more thought into what was gained and what was lost would have made the ending more satisfying.

Those two minor issues aside, I can highly recommend Slant.

http://timothywang.tumblr.com/AboutMe

The Emerald Mountain by Victor J. Banis

2011-05-26T15:02:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: MLR Press
Pages: 34

A burned-out reporter for a gay rag in San Francisco is given an unusual assignment, to follow up on rumors that there is a gay messiah miraculously healing people in the Castro. His investigation leads him to Peter Lucas Simon, who was recently released from a mental clinic in Ohio called Earth Light, and who has no memory. Simon is a man caught in the present, with no history and no vision into the future. Simon seems too supernatural to be true.

The two men strike up a relationship, and the reporter travels to Earth Light in search of answers to Simon’s mysterious past. But the reporter’s visit only brings more questions. They become involved, but then a disappearance presents an intriguing question. Is Simon real or is he a hallucination fabricated in the reporter’s unhinged head?

One of the hallmarks of Victor J. Banis stories is the unique characters that lure the reader into an enjoyable journey, and this tale is no exception. These characters shine through this intriguing storyline, and charm the reader while the author plays a shell game with the plot that leaves the reader wondering what was real and what was imagined.

In the end, the reader realized that, real or invented, this is a story about letting fear of the unknown grab hold of us rather than accepting what is. This is a beautifully told story that blends religion and mysticism and homophobia. It is a mystery that keeps the reader engrossed and guessing to the last page. I can highly recommend this story.

http://www.vjbanis.com/

Shining In The Sun by Alex Beecroft

2011-05-21T14:37:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Pages: 170

Alec Goodchilde has everything a middle-aged man could want—wads of money, important job, beautiful fiancé, controlling mother—except the freedom to be himself. He’s a prisoner within his own life. But every summer he drives to an exclusive yacht club on the Cornish coast and sails away for a month-long break from his overly structured life. This year, however, when his car breaks down and leaves him stranded on a beach, something inside him is awakened by the sight of a surfer dancing on the waves. The surfer is summer made flesh, freedom wrapped in a lithe package. He is everything Alex secretly longs for.

Darren Stokes’ only joy is riding the waves. He desperately needs a break from his life of grinding work, appalling relatives and hiding from his abusive ex-boyfriend. He sees that break in the form of a rich meal ticket that shows an interest in him. Darren coaxes Alec into an idyllic night together that turns into a life changing experience for both men, but no relationship is an island. The blinding light reality from each of their lives exposes the impossibility of their budding attraction.

At first blush this seems like a rather simple yet well-told story of opposites attract. Beecroft hooks the reader with vividly drawn characters and then draws the reader into a beautifully crafted world where both rich and poor can find a middle ground to protect each other and even flourish for a time. These characters come alive because of their genuine emotions and concerns.

But as both characters’ lives begin to catch up with them, the plot becomes more complex, with twists and turns that give the reader a nice range of emotional experiences. This is no simple tale of rich man meets poor boy. It is a multifaceted web of situations and emotions. The lovers are pulled apart again and again, but they keep fighting their way back to each other. By the end, the reader realizes that it is a story about finding courage. As Alex’s and Darren’s bond becomes stronger, they awaken in each other the pluck to fight back against all the negative influences in their lives that imprison them.

And do they win their battles? Do they live happily ever after? Well, this is a romance and at times a rather predictable one. I will say that I found the ending to be completely satisfying. Once again, Alex Beecroft has proven she is a topnotch storyteller. This is a read I can highly recommend.

http://alexbeecroft.com/

Retirement Plan by Martha Miller

2011-05-18T17:29:00.000-07:00

Reviewer: Victor J. Banis
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books (May 2011)
ISBN-10: 1602822247

An intriguing and engrossing read. Lois Burnett and Sophie Long, two senior lesbians, decide to supplement their meager retirement income with some contract killings. With this premise, I was actually expecting a screwball comedy, but it turns out this is more of a crime/police procedural. There is humor, to be sure, much of it supplied by Myrtle, a friend of Lois and Sophie’s, who is looking for love and trying on new partners like changing clothes in a fitting room.

The killings, however, are handled in a serious manner. The story essentially follows two different threads, that of the hit women and of detective Morgan Holiday as she tries to solve the killings, the two paths leading inevitably to an eventual intersection.

Lois and Sophie struggle not only with their shootings, but also with an offensive neighbor mistreating his dog, the loss of their grandson, Matt, in Afghanistan, and the return of their adopted Vietnamese daughter, Ruby, who has been in prison on drug and prostitution charges. When Ruby is released from prison, Sophie convinces Lois they must give her another chance, despite some reluctance on Lois’s part.
Homicide detective Morgan Holiday, meanwhile struggles with problems of her own—her fluctuating weight, her own sexuality – despite a lesbian relationship in the past, she has yet to accept herself as lesbian—and a mother with Alzheimer’s who rarely recognizes her and has a penchant for escaping from her nursing home. The humor in these segments is grim.

I had problems with a couple of points, foremost among them it seemed that the two leads choose their retirement career somewhat blithely. I had to suspend disbelief on that score, but no more so than I would have done with, say, a fantasy novel, where I just have to accept the author’s premise that dragons are real. And while the author tries to adhere to the format of the hit TV show, Dexter, where Dexter is a serial killer who more or less redeems himself for viewers via the fact that the people he kills are all certifiable monsters, I thought Lois and Sophie were a little quick on the trigger, so to speak. True, a couple of their hits were undeniable scumbags and there’s little reason for anyone to regret their demise, but some others were not quite so clearly delineated. Deciding to kill someone who is annoying, for instance, even seriously annoying, or corrupting, as in abetting someone to fall off the wagon, falls more into the category of vigilantism than of righteous justice. But certainly plenty of people were ready to cheer Charles Bronson in Death Wish and its sequels, so mine may not be the popular opinion. And it helps here that the Lois and Sophie are well drawn and sympathetic, so that the reader can easily care about them and root for them, even if not always agreeing with their judgments. After all, how often in life do we agree with everything our friends decide?

Despite my quibbles, I found this a well written novel, with believable and likable characters and some not so likable, and plenty of suspense, not of the whodunit style but rather of the will-they-get-away-with-it sort, the answer to which I’m not going to supply here. And while ostensibly a lesbian novel, its appeal is broader than that. The issues with which the characters grapple are, after all, universal ones—the plight of seniors in today’s society, the search for love and acceptance, the failings of the legal system in protecting the innocent from the predators. One hardly needs to be lesbian to recognize these issues, or share in the struggle with them.

All in all, highly recommended.

www.boldstrokesbooks.com

Match Maker by Alan Chin

2011-05-14T15:42:00.000-07:00

Review by Carol Zampa at Miz Love Loves Books
Published by Dreamspinner Press
Page: 388

Blurb:
In the four years since being forced off the professional tour for being gay, Daniel Bottega has taught tennis at a second-rate country club. He found a sanctuary to hide from an unkind world, while his lover, Jared Stoderling, fought a losing battle with alcohol addiction to cope with his disappointment of not playing on the pro circuit. Now Daniel has another chance at the tour by coaching tennis prodigy Connor Lin to a Grand Slam championship win. He shares his chance with Jared by convincing him to return to the pro circuit as Connor's doubles partner. Competing on the world tour is challenging enough, but Daniel and Jared also face major media attention, political fallout from the pro association, and a shocking amount of hate that threatens Connor's career in tennis, Jared's love for Daniel, and Daniel's very life.

Simply this: that at a certain point in each person’s life, he loses control of what is happening to him, and he becomes controlled by fate. It’s so easy to believe. It takes all the responsibility away from us, and we like that. But it is only a lie, a truly insidious lie
--- Alan Chin, “Match Maker”

Review:
Words. I need words. But, you know, sometimes words fail, and they’re failing me right now as I try to present my review—oh, wait, I don’t DO reviews, do I? So there. I’m free to gush like a bubbly fountain because I don’t have to critique, I just get to…well…babble.

If Ron Howard and Franco Zeffirelli collaborated to create a story—Howard’s poignancy and emotional grit and Zeffirelli’s lavish, sweeping glimpses into exotic worlds—the result would be a piece such as Alan Chin’s Match Maker.

First of all, don’t let the title or the setting of the book—the world of pro tennis—turn you away from this story. I know absolutely nothing about tennis, if you don’t count my temporary jaunt in my teens when I bought a racket and pretty balls but never used them. But, somehow, Chin managed to propel me into the fast-paced world of the game—fascinating me with the ultra-cool terms and the thrill-of-victory-and-the-agony-of-defeat emotion; and, by the time I closed the book, I was mentally ready to take on Martina Navratilova. The prose, the knowledge of the sport—not boring but extremely exciting—was that vital.

You know I love to expound on characters, and I’m learning I can never choose just one. Well, Match Maker was no exception.

Do you want to know a secret? I should be ashamed, but I was initially drawn to the book by the introduction of Connor Lin, the eighteen-year-old aspiring tennis champ with the familiar overly pushy father, the center of the story. I adore, adore, adore Asian men, and young Connor immediately captivated me.

Oh, come on! Before you wag your head at me, read this description of Connor: I took in the vision before me. His body lay quivering, lean and golden and perfectly defined. I had not seen him undressed before, and his sculpted loveliness stunned me. I understood why Shar couldn’t resist him. His burnt-coffee-colored hair cascaded toward the floor, one arm crossed over his eyes, his other foot braced on the floor. Sweat beaded on his breast and ribs, and under the glistening moisture were cool bluish veins weaving under the pale skin.

Though the book is laden with some of the most beautiful, sensual sex scenes I’ve ever read—and I even hesitate to call them ‘sex’ scenes, as they are not explicit but tender, excruciatingly so, yet still manage to send shivers up the spine and delicious spasms to the belly—the sensual physical aspects of the story are wondrously used to speak the characters’ emotions loud and clear instead of dialogue in some scenes. And, by the careful placement of these scenes, the author proves one of my strongest beliefs: that intimacy IS a language all its own. So, if sex is a language, then Alan Chin, in Match Maker, has created a beautiful, complex dialect all his own.

The heroes of the story are Daniel Bottega and Jared Stoderling, who have been inseparable since their youths. Daniel—although a good tennis player himself—took a back seat to the promising tennis dynamo, Jared; but he was content to do so, he loved him that much.

Daniel and Jared’s relationship is realistic. It’s good, it’s bad. And when it’s really bad, the men are tested, especially Daniel. And Daniel’s heart—through Chin’s mastery of words that pierce the reader’s gut like a knife with those very recognizable hurts and smiles—is cut into pieces by his lover’s fall from stardom at the hands of bigotry in sports.

Of course, I can’t reveal plot. But Daniel’s dealings with Jared’s decline, with Jared’s alcoholism, hurt my heart. Although I’ve never dealt with alcoholism, I still knew the pain. None of us are immune to it.

At one point in the story, Daniel mused, A jolt of panic rifled through me, thinking that this was the moment. The support structure of our relationship had been deteriorating for years, and now it was about to collapse. With so few words, but such perfect words, Chin drove the anguish in Daniel’s heart home to the reader, right smack dab in the middle of the core.

All us humans relate to obstacles in our own way, but I know that few of us are immune to the drive that keeps us tied to our love, that just will not let us walk away. And Chin translated this universal ‘disability’ with clarity. I think—no, I know—very few readers would NOT see themselves though some aspect of Daniel Bottega.

One thing I loved about Daniel was that Chin allowed him to find pleasure in touches and sights of other men, and still not stray from his rock solid love for Jared. That, my friend, is human. And I’m not sure but what Alan Chin is one of the first bold writers I’ve read who allows for this very real facet of human nature—where the hero is tempted at times, yet you don’t want to call him a creep, but you love him for it. Beauty is beauty, in Daniel’s eyes, even if it is in the form of another man. And if there ever was a man who could find reason to roam, it would be Daniel; but he does not. True to his character, his potent, unyielding love keeps him true to Jared.

One thing happens in this story that, when I came to it, I almost closed the book. I thought, oh, no, not this angle. But I’d invested too much of my heart in the characters and I could not abandon them.

And I was glad, so glad, I did not walk away.

Chin took this dramatic surprise and—once the urge to knock him upside his talented head for letting it happen in the first place passed—I realized I’d witnessed story telling in its most sublime form. He turned the event into a triumph which was a far cry from the melodrama it could have become, and wove it into a million reasons for me to fall even deeper in love with Daniel than I already was. Could the man BE any more human, could he BE any more beautiful? I wondered, I truly did.

When I referred to Ron Howard and Franco Zeffirelli, well, you obviously know by now why I thought of a Ron Howard movie. Nobody can dish out the emotion like Howard; well, not until Alan Chin stepped onto the court.

And Zeffirelli? Well, Chin takes us all over the world, from San Francisco to the Mediterranean with its blue skies, bleached white structures and clear, gorgeous champagne-colored water. I felt the sun on my face, the sand beneath me, the breezes wafting into the bedroom while I made love to Jared. Wait! Sorry! I didn’t make love to Jared in the sun-drenched bedroom, that was Daniel. See? It was so real, so divine, so sensual, I took a free flight across the globe, courtesy of Alan Chin.

Daniel Bottega’s story is a treatise on survival against the odds, love that just won’t quit, even when the object of the affection unconsciously tries to snuff it out. It’s a beautiful commentary on survival, heartbreaking-but-ultimately-heart-swelling-with joy hanging on to what you know is there, what you KNOW is worth hanging on for. It’s a symphony on self-esteem, and on the many factors that can wreak havoc on it. It’s a lesson on how to regain that self-esteem.

Most of all? To me? It’s a beautiful poem on love. After all, love is—even though we don’t really realize it—at the core of everything, one way or another. And Chin paints across this canvas with such beauty, such softness, and then lets you step back and take a deep breath, a satisfied breath. And you know you just fell in love with Daniel and his gang, but mostly Daniel.

The ending alone is so happy, so powerful….can I give you a hint…the game is on. And, when you’ve finished the book and read those words, and know what they mean and what they cost, I’ll bet you a million dollars that you’ll cry. I did.

I’ll stop with one of the most beautiful thoughts in the book:

Everyone weaves a unique tapestry, using threads of happiness and sorrow, honor and shame, to create a multi-colored landscape that is our past. The secret is knowing that the tapestry is a mirage. It doesn’t really exist. There is only now and what is to come. It is life’s mystery—and its blessing.

http://alanchin.net

The Shakespeare Conspiracy by Ted Bacino

2011-05-13T18:26:00.001-07:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by AuthorHouse
Pages: 288

The Shakespeare Conspiracy is a historical novel that unravels two mysteries, and then weaves the pieces back together to reveal what could be the most scandalous deception in the history of literature.

Mystery #1: How could Chrisopher Marlowe, England’s foremost playwright, be suspiciously murdered and quickly buried in an unmarked grave only days before he was to be tried for treason?

Mystery #2: How could William Shakespeare replace Marlowe as England’s greatest playwright virtually overnight, when Shakespeare had never written anything before and was merely a little-known actor?

Did Shakespeare really write all those fantastic plays, or did he have a ghostwriter by the name of Christopher Marlowe? Read the book and decide for yourself.

I must admit that the author wheels his facts like a sword to make a pretty convincing story of how Christopher Marlowe faked his own death to escape the hangman, and then with the help of his benefactor and lover, continued writing plays that William Shakespeare took credit for. But Bacino not only presents a convincing theory and backs it up with facts, he tells an interesting, exciting and funny love story that is full of plot twists. It is an amazingly fun read.

The premise and the characters are deliciously unique. I especially like the way the author paints Shakespeare as a buffoonish rogue who doesn’t know a comma from a camel. The love story that unfolds between Marlowe and his benefactor, Thomas Walsingham, is both touching and inspiring. There is much to love about this story.

Set in 16th Century Elizabethan England as the Black Plague ravages the country, these characters traverse grand country estates, the underbelly of London, the torture chamber of Bidwell prison, as well as a seven-year manhunt across Italy. It is a tale of murder, mayhem, loyalty, and love. The author presents what I believe to be an accurate glimpse of the political strife, religious supremacy, and gay society of the time.

Within the first few pages, it became clear to me that his novel was adapted from a screenplay. The whole book reads like a screenplay, which means there is little delving into the characters’ heads and hearing their thoughts. This is one of the few books I’ve read that could benefit from a little more telling rather than showing. Although I must say that as the story progressed, the writing continued to grow stronger. There were a few minor holes in the plot, but they were easily overlooked.

One thing that struck me was the historical accuracy. Bacino has done his homework well, and even includes fifty pages of supplemental notes and historical data to support his argument. There is also a number of comparisons between Marlowe’s and Shakespeare’s writings that are too numerous and too telling to ignore.

The Shakespeare Conspiracy is a fast, fun, engaging read. I highly recommend it to everyone who loves a good, eye-opening romp through history.

www.theshakespeareconspiracy.com

Legend of the Mountain Ash by Ruth Sims

2011-04-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Untreed Reads Publishing
Pages: 14

This poignant story starts with these two sentences: There are places in this world where magic and miracles meet, and when they do a legend is born. This is the story of one such legend, and how it came to be.

This simple yet beautiful opening blossoms into a tale of how Ethan and Davey meet in an army hospital during the World War II, after Ethan was brought there courtesy of a German bayonet. It then describes a growing love as the British lad, Davey, nurses the American solider back to health, a love as tender as a young shoot, but with roots growing deep in fertile soil.

Davey follows his lover back to America and they settle in a farming community, but bigotry from the townsfolk forces them to move on. They search for a place where they can live, free to express their love openly, so as to let it grow strong, and toughen into something that neither people nor time could destroy. In the Appalachian hills, they found such a place, a place where magic and miracles meet. The Legend of the Mountain Ash is, as so many legends are, a story of love and loss, sacrifice and redemption.

Sometimes the simplest stories are the most powerful. Such is the case with this tale, and under Ruth Sims’s skillful hand, this story also blends beauty and grace with that power, and she adds a dash fanciful magic to create an inner journey for the reader, a passage that leads to a bittersweet joy. As the lovers scratch out a life for themselves in this backwoods paradise (a reflection of their love), stone by stone, stick by stick, crop by crop, they also build a structure within the heart and mind of the reader.

The characters will pull at your heartstrings. The enchanting prose will tickle your whimsical soul. The ending, although somewhat predictable, will charm and sadden and uplift. This is one of those rare stories that is felt. And long after you put it down, you will continue to feel it, because it will awaken something in you, at least it did for me. I can highly recommend this story to all readers.

http://www.ruthsims.com/

The Quest for Brian by Jeff Graubart

2011-04-19T21:56:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by CreateSpace (November, 2010)
Pages: 744

In the early 1970s David Rosen learns that his boyfriend, Brian, lost his job as a teacher because the school board found out Brian was gay. That injustice launches David on a quest for gay liberation, and once on that path he finds the fight a consuming passion from which there seems no escape. But the noble fight for justice does not lift David to a higher plane, rather, he falls farther away from the man he loves and seems to lose every battle, every friend. Because of his extreme and eccentric views, both Brian and the fellow gay liberation fighters distance themselves from David. From Champaign-Urbana to Chicago, to California, and back to Champaign, David descends into a web of obsession, drug addiction and instability.

Much of this story is the author’s memoirs, so the reader becomes witness to actual historical events, heretofore unprinted, starting in the early 1970s and going until the White Night Riots in San Francisco when Dan White got away with murdering Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. This autobiographical historical fiction is an important work, and should raise questions in the soul of every reader, gay or straight, red neck or liberal.

This was not a read I enjoyed, but rather, a read I found interesting. Brian was not a likable character, but he had noble qualities and a sense of justice, which made him a good protagonist. He was a young gay man who somehow linked his unrequited love for Brian Powers with the Gay Liberation Movement, and David’s obsession with both led him down a path of drug addiction and a lust for violent resistance that I found distasteful, as did everybody else in this story. David soon found himself a pariah in the gay community, with nothing to grab onto but the fight.

The story chronicles David’s few successes and many failures throughout this turbulent decade. One of the things I found most interesting was the variety of different gay political groups, and their intrigue, backstabbing and infighting that was a constant theme. Groups would form and dissolve at the drop of a skirt, and seemed more social than political.

The main issue that kept me from enjoying the storyline is that I found the book to be completely over-written. I felt the author could have easily cut out three hundred pages, and the result would be a tighter and more interesting story. As it is, I often found myself wading hip deep in detail that didn’t add much to the story. This was a problem from page one to the end.

This is a long, slow, repetitive, and often entertaining read. I recommend it for those readers who are interested in seeing a unique view of one of the most important and volatile periods in gay history. The following is an excerpt from the book that shows what the political situation was at that time:

In the film Milk, many got their first glimpse of the gay rights struggles of the 70s. Were those struggles an exercise in futility? Consider the following about 1980:
-It had been just six years since Los Angeles police were ordered to harass and arrest homosexuals.
-It had been just eight years since many states had special camps for incarcerating homosexuals.
-It had been just ten years since it was illegal for bartenders in New York City to serve homosexuals.
-It had been just eleven years since it was illegal in Dade County, Florida, for three or more homosexuals to congregate in public.
-It had been just twelve years since a Time Magazine poll showed that most Americans despised homosexuals more than murderers.
-It had been just fourteen years since a respected judge on the Florida Supreme Court wrote in a ruling that Americans would view the death penalty far more favorably if it was used against homosexuals.
So, suppose there was no uprising. Suppose Bryant and Briggs and Walinsky had won. Suppose the religious right was at peak strength in 1980, instead of in tatters.
And then the plague came.

Anita Bryant, who was fired from the Florida Citrus Commission, divorced by her husband, ruined in her career as a singer, and driven into bankruptcy; but those who choose to use God to justify their prejudices had better take note.

http://thequestforbrian.com

Butterfly’s Child by Alan Chin

2011-04-12T20:58:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Piet Bach at Wilde Oats eZine

Published by Dreamspinner Press

4 ½ stars

Alan Chin has taken Butterfly and both re-set it in high-desert Nevada and re-imagined it in two different time lines, to stunning effect. Essentially, he has written a sequel to the opera, an opera in prose form. Such an undertaking requires both nerves of steel and a sure hand, and Chin demonstrates that he has both. Some of the dramatic development is unexpected at the very least, but the character development is both subtle and deeply felt. The axis of both opera and novel is the character of Suzuki, which my Japanese friend told me translated as “Perfume of Pines”. As a name, it gives us a hint that the maid will be the strong survivor of the household, and in Chin’s tale it is indeed the maid/companion Juanita around whom the homestead revolves. Tough and resilient as a high-desert evergreen, scoured to essentials by wind and cold and desert heat, she holds the ranch together while disaster nearly consumes the family created by Butterfly’s child. The child has grown into a young man haunted by loss and grief, and whose preternaturally acute hearing has made him a misfit in the Manhattan environment he inhabits. His grandmother’s death and the necessity of returning to the family ranch to settle her affairs uproot him from life in the musical world, setting him on a course of growth and maturation. Along the way he sees one love wither and another blossom, witnesses deep devotion and fidelity, sees others’ loves grow in both romantic and non-romantic forms, learns what it is to be a man, and re-discovers a joy in music that he thought had faded completely away.

The characters of Butterfly’s Child are sensitively drawn; from the novel’s protagonist Todd, to the small boy Jem, they are believable and engaging. As the story progresses, we are pulled into the extended family. In the broadest sense, this is a romance, but it is far more than that. The tale is compelling – I was so transfixed by it, in fact, that I read the entire novel in one long sitting, stopping only when hunger drove me to the table and returning to the book as soon as I set my fork on the empty plate. Short scenes and longer set pieces are intelligently balanced, and the pace never feels either rushed or inhibited. I did feel a twinge of annoyance a couple of times when a passage of recitativo ran too dry: the hero’s ruminations on Zen Buddhism could have been abbreviated without damage to the score. But that’s a minor point. You don’t have to be a fan of Italian opera to respond to this dramatic tale of high romance, just be ready to fall in love.

http://alanchin.net

Tough Guy Erotica by Neil Plakcy

2011-04-12T20:54:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Beth Wylde
Published by Amazon

Occasionally I force myself to find some time to catch up on my reading, especially when I'm feeling low and in a bit of a funk. Nothing inspires my imagination (and the rest of me) like some really naughty erotica. It's hard to stay sad when everyone between the pages are happily getting laid.

When I ran across an offer to read and review the latest collection by Neil Plakcy I jumped at the chance. My poor computer paid the price. I'm finished reading but the poor screen is still smoking.

I do feel like up front I need to warn readers a bit about this book. These stories are intensely graphic. This is gay male erotica the likes of which some of you have probably never seen before. There are no dainty fem guys or delicate gay romps between these pages. No mushy romance or easing your new found lover between the sheets. These men prove that big strong macho guys enjoy having sex with other men just as much, or more, than some of their smaller and gentler gay brethren.

Now that's not necessarily a bad thing, but you need to go into this anthology prepared. If you prefer something a little gentler and less carnal then you should probably keep shopping.

There is no purple prose, no fade to black. Neil uses part real-life inspiration from past adventures and an exceedingly fertile imagination to bring us some of the hardest erotica I've ever seen. Pages of big, muscular, beefy men who are attracted to other hard working sweaty guys, and they like sex. A LOT! With each other!

The sex depicted in this book is raw and gritty and nasty and at times even I could feel my cheeks getting hot, which is a hell of an accomplishment in my opinion. I'll never look at turkey and dressing the same way again. This is not a collection for the faint of heart.

The proof of that is the fact that quite a few of these stories were previously published through some big name publishers of gay erotica. No holds barred. You've got publishers and websites like Cleis, Honcho magazine, and Alyson. Just to name a few, plus some new stories that will leave your fingertips burning long after you've taken your hands off the mouse.

(No, I don't have an e-reader yet so I'm reading on my desktop. Sad, I know)
I did find a few typos but not enough to pull me out of the story the way some books I've read in the past have.

If you like your men strong, furry, fearsome and forceful then this is one collection you HAVE to purchase. If you like your erotica a little less graphic then this isn't the anthology for you. If, and when, you do buy Tough Guy, just be sure to have the fire department on standby before you start reading.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003WUY308/ref=cm_cr_mts_prod_img

Traveling Light By Lloyd Meeker

2011-04-08T16:48:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Victor J. Banis
Published by MLR Press
ISBN: 978-1-60820-318-5

5+ stars – a definite keeper

Summary Review: A unique and wonderful tale of love and wisdom spanning centuries

The Blurb: An eye for an eye…
Ian McCandless is a hospice nurse, training to become a shaman. When his mentor orders him to make peace with his estranged family, reluctantly agrees, anticipating another conflict-filled visit. On their way home from the airport Ian’s older brother, Will, interrupts a convenience store robbery and is shot, dying in Ian’s arms and calling to him for vengeance.
Ian uses his shamanic abilities to track down the killer, but his quest soon turns into a hunt for revenge—forbidden to any shaman. Ian’s pursuit jeopardizes his relationship with the spirit world, endangers the lives of those he loves, and threatens to banish him from the only path that gives his life meaning.

The review:
I confess, when I finished reading Traveling Light, I found myself wondering what on earth I was going to say about it. Well, of course there were certain things that could be and must be said—for starters, that this is a beautifully written novel, an almost perfect marriage of style and story.

But how, I wondered, to explain the story. It is one of those that defies classification, for starters. It’s a gay novel—sort of. It’s a romance—sort of. It’s a two-spirits tale—sort of. It’s a paranormal and a time travel and all kinds of other things…all sort of. In fact, it’s not really much like anything I’ve read before, though that may be more of an indictment of my reading habits than a description of the novel. What it is, for certain, is a wonderfully compelling read.

Ian is an apprentice shaman, in contemporary Vancouver. He is on a trip to try to patch things up with his estranged family in Halifax when his older brother, Will, is shot in a convenience store robbery, and Ian thirsts for revenge—a dangerous emotion for a shaman to hold onto, as his mentor Ang warns him. Nonetheless, angry and determined to find justice, Ian begins to search for his brother’s spirit, and for the man who shot him.

Ta-Kuat is an apprentice shaman in a 13th century Anasazi village whose mentor, Chiyuskanek, seeks something called the Door Stone that he believes will bring critically needed rain and save their village from extinction—but Chiyuskanek’s motives are not pure. He wants to bring the rain so that the succeeding generations of their tribes will sing his praises. And because his aims are not pure, he can no longer do the spirit travel necessary to search for the Door Stone. In his place, Ta-Kuat begins a search for the Door Stone.

Ta-Kuat and Ian meet on the spirit plane, and are drawn to one another. Bear in mind, on the physical level, they are centuries apart, Ta-Kuat dead long before Ian was even born. Now, if, like me, you’re thinking there’s no way they can make it happen on the spirit level, you’re in for a big surprise:
“He couldn’t bear his own ecstasy, yet knew it without effort, just as he knew Ta-Kuat’s. They formed one being, one matrix of power, one undulating wave on the vastness that lifted them, drowning them.

He became vast, permeable, fluid, gas, solid, a tree’s memory, desire fierce as a hawk’s cry…Ta- Kuat was a volcano and Ian an ocean meeting him, infinite welcome. He evaporated and condensed again around the heat of newborn rock, caressing him with his eternal waves…Then, helpless and all powerful, all his chakras flowered open, his body swelled, failing to contain his essence, bursting open into stars rising in a spiral fountain, twining together, together melting and falling—into spent ash, soil, stone, silent water, root, rest—complete.”

Whew! I’m telling you, I was ready to trade in my gonads. And that’s the condensed version.

An evil spirit guide, Sheen, convinces Chiyuskanek that the way to achieve power is to kill Ta-Kuat and replace his heart with the Door Stone. Ian, meanwhile, foresees the murder and tries to avert it—thus interfering in the thread of Ta-Kuat’s life—another mistake for a shaman.

The plot is complex, and evolves on many levels, and I don’t want to give too much of that away here. Suffice to say, there’s metaphor and mystery, and riddles to be solved on many different levels and in many different time spaces. In the end, the author is writing about nothing less cosmic than the beginnings of Time, as we know it. One cannot help but come from this reading experience a bit wiser than before—but that makes it sound a bit too profound and far less fun than it actually is. This is a book to be savored on many different levels.

As to the characters, Ta-Kuat is a terrific creation, as is Ang. Chiyuskanek is particularly chilling because he does not himself see the evil of his ways. There is a wonderful cast of spirit creatures or guides: Shining Woman, Wolf Lady, Rattlesnake, Ghost Woman, Raven and the wonderfully creepy Sheen, a sort of cross between a dragon and a scorpion. Ian seems to me a little slow sometimes to “get it” but he’s endearing in his innocence. In truth, most of the characters in the “real world” – though you will begin to wonder as you read about that designation—are a bit less convincing than their spirit counterparts, maybe reflecting the author’s inclinations. And it may be that the author did this deliberately; I wouldn’t be surprised. The sexual element, e.g., is far more subdued on the physical plane than what I quoted above.

All in all this is a mystical tour-de-force, a spellbinding piece of writing—as I said, like nothing I’ve encountered before—I can’t imagine anyone not enjoying this fully. But it does ask the reader to think. The truths that Ian and Ta-Kuat face are universal ones all of us must in time consider.

http://www.lloydmeeker.com/travelinglightex.html

The Voting Booth After Dark: Despicable, Embarrassing, Repulsive by Vanessa Libertad Garcia

2011-03-24T07:26:00.001-07:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Fiat Libertad Co.
Pages 60

This slim book (about 60 pages) is a collection of twenty-three vignettes. Most of these pieces are poems, some are micro-stories, and others seem to be simply ramblings and gibberish. Each entry illustrates a few moments or hours in some person’s rather miserable life.

It took me almost half the book to begin liking the images that popped out at me like a Warhol painting. These are a gritty and unapologizing glimpse of the underbelly of a society gone mad. These characters are desperate, disenchanted, alcoholic, drug addicted, and some are suicidal. Yet, woven within this fabric of stark wretchedness is a glimmering hope for finding love, or a successful job, or simply being able to pay the bills or show up for work on time. It is a reminder that even so close to the gutter, there is always hope, that we strive to be good. That seems to be the human condition, striving against the overwhelming tide.

This book is not for everyone. No one here is finding love, or even comfort. Yet there is a certain honesty to the characters who struggle to find meaning in a world that is moving too fast for them. They are filled with raw tormenting emotions, but seem to lack self-pity. They accept their sexuality, yet can’t seem to navigate to a place of comfort with it. Reading this book was like watching a drunken bag lady passed out on a doorstep; I wanted to look away, but found myself fascinated by the descriptions thrown at me.

Let me leave you with some of my favorite images:

“Celebrities. Human beings turned deities by a society of sleep walking spectators. From the alarm to the car to the office to happy hour and back home to a bottle of wine and TIVO. Bought images engulfing us in a web of stories passed off as convictions that turn religion. So forms the pattern of an American mind”

“it was gonna be a fun night. It was Wednesday and I was unemployed. Last 20 bucks in the bank, but it doesn’t matter because life will work out. Life is working out. I should go work out. Life’s not the problem, I a . . . FUN! We gonna have fun tonight, baby! I should be reading a book about Georgia O’Keeffe and how much she liked pussy. Pussy inspired her success, maybe I’ll be cultured after that book. Really cultured, not half cultured the way being raised in LA makes--- Tonight is going to be fun, I can feel it.”

And my personal favorite:

“Today, November 4th, 2008, dawns a different morning.

The North American continent, excluding Canada, Mexico, and the others, decides the 44th president of The United States. Conservative Republican John McCain vs. Middle of the Road Democrat Barack Obama. The marketing campaigns of a Hard Knocks Nam’ Vet and a Charismatic Black Idealist duke it out for the top spot in this nation’s hierarchy. Traditional Values climb in the ring with the Eve of Change.

Vice Presidential running mate, Joe Biden, sits back, as the other Vice Presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, sends feminism back 5 decades. California debates gay marriage as church goers reflect on the terms “inherent worth” and “equal rights.”

The suffocating economy struggles to release itself from the greedy grip of a Republican Dictatorship dropping to its knees.”

http://tinyurl.com/4v8c6jc

First Person Plural by Andrew W.M. Beierle

2011-03-15T21:02:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Kensington Books
Pages: 322

Owen and Porter Jamison are conjoined twins—one body, two heads, two functioning brains, and definitely two very dissimilar hearts. Growing up, they see themselves as a single entity, but as they near adulthood they metamorphose into completely opposite personalities. Porter is pure jock, outgoing, and charismatic. He compensates for his abnormality by being the best red-blooded, all-American football hero in the town. Owen is cerebral, artistic, and a romantic. He compensates by withdrawing into his own world.

As Porter begins dating a high school cheerleader, Owen becomes painfully aware that he has no interest in girls. As Owen explores his feelings, he admits to himself, and then to Porter, that he is gay, which causes a riff between the brothers, but of course, sharing one body, they can’t very well ignore one another. At first Owen is content to settle for unrequited crushes, but soon finds himself exploring his desires with other gay guys. This, naturally, widens the riff between the brothers and expands Porter’s fear that people will assume he is also gay. To survive, they must somehow learn to give and take, to be supportive as well as take what they need. But when it comes to something as personal as sex, can they do that?

I had a love/hate relationship with this book. On the one hand it is exceedingly well written, the characters are deeply drawn and sympathetic, and the situation is fascinating from the first page. I particularly loved the way the ending brought all the issues together without being overly sentimental. This book has all the elements of a really great, highly emotional drama, yet I constantly struggled with my suspension of belief—the idea that a two-headed boy could be the star quarterback at school and date the cheerleader was too much for my imagination to overcome. And that is only one example. These characters were constantly getting into situations where the rest of the world didn’t seem to notice they were a two-headed body. Had they been two bodies joined at the hip or chest—like the brothers in the movie Twin Falls Idaho—then I could have more easily been absorbed into the story, but as it was I heard a nagging voice all the way through the story, a voice whining: no way!

As hard as that issue was to swallow, I actually had a bigger issue with this tale. Once Owen determines he is gay, this tale becomes a series of coming out vignettes. First Owen tries to hide it from Porter, and has to come out to him. Then to their parents, then to Porter’s girlfriend, then to the girlfriend’s family, then…on and on it goes. I lost count of all the times the brothers attempted to hide Owen’s sexuality and then had to come clean to whoever it was they were hiding from. It didn’t take long to become tedious, and in some cases boring.

Still, those two issues aside, the last third of the books saves the day and I ended up pulling for both brothers. It is a unique plot that pushes all the right buttons at all the right times. I truly enjoyed this story, and I can highly recommend it. I look forward to reading more from Mr. Beierle, who I consider to be an exceptional talent.

http://andrewbeierle.com/

My Uncle’s Wedding By Eric Ross, Illustrated by Tracy Greene

2011-03-03T05:29:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by CreateSpace (Feburary 2011)
Pages: 19

When an author pens a manuscript, the first thing s/he needs to do is determine the intended audience. In a children’s story, I suspect it becomes rather difficult to adjust the language to a particular age range. Knowing little about children, I can only guess that this book targets children from ages three to six, and in my opinion, does so masterfully well.

It is the charming story of the preparations for, and the ceremony of, a marriage of two loving men, as seen through the young eyes of Andy, the nephew of one of the men getting married. From Uncle Mike’s announcement that he plans to marry Steve, this story steps through each stage—ordering flowers, food, a cake, a new suit for Andy, and the ceremony itself—with simple prose and delightful illustrations.

Of course, this story is intended to do more that entertain; it also educates. It subtly illustrates to impressionable minds that there is no difference between same-sex weddings and hetrosexual weddings, and there is joy to be shared by everyone involved.

That’s it. Within the bare framework of this tale, beneath the surface of its colorful illustrations and simple phrases, lies a loving message of equality, a suggestion of acceptance. It is a parent’s responsibility to teach their children tolerance of all people, and I have yet to find a better tool to begin that lesson than My Uncle’s Wedding.

For more information about his book, go to http://tinyurl.com/6eqcup3
.

A Woman Like the Sea By Anne Brooke

2011-02-26T03:55:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Victor J. Banis
Published by Untreed Reads

When an author pens a novel, it’s pretty much up to him to tell the reader what he wants the reader to know. In a short story, however, the author must seduce the reader into becoming a participant in the process. The short story allows only so many words, so many lines. It becomes the reader’s role to read between the lines, to fill in the blanks from what the author has given him.

There are few authors who illustrate this point more effectively than Anne Brooke, and perhaps nowhere better than in this brief, nearly perfect story. Sometime in the past, the woman telling the story, a good but not great artist who painted the sea, met another woman and they loved. Now her love is gone, and the narrator waits by the ocean for her to return.

That’s it. But within the bare framework of this tale, beneath the surface of its elegant phrases, its impeccable rhythms, its haunting familiarity, lies an ocean of feeling, of suggestion and unfathomable menace. The author gives us a breathtaking palette of shadings, of sounds and scents—but it is up to the reader to provide the nuance, the feel of it, the sense. These come from our own deep fathoms, borne on the tide of our love, our hate, our loss. Because the author is wise enough to know that we have them too.

The sea is a mystery—as the author puts it, “a primeval force like anger or fear or love.” Ultimately we must all of us stand at the shore of those deep emotions and remember—and wait.

http://annebrooke.com/

The Immortals by Victor J. Banis

2011-02-24T03:56:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Amber Quill Press, LLC
Pages: 29

Jason was quite surprised when Peter took a fancy to him and immediately wanted them to move in together. Not only was Peter far better looking and successful than the men Jason dated, but he expressed feelings of true love. Jason didn’t consider himself a catch. He was rather ordinary looking and, because he was a student, had no income. None of that mattered to Peter, who had the looks and income to keep them both happy.

They set up house together and everything was going great until a fantastic career opportunity opened up for Peter in Los Angeles. Against Jason’s better judgment, the lovers moved to L.A., and temporarily moved into Peter’s father’s house until they could find a place of their own.

Peter’s father, Alders, had been widowed for several years. He was a man eaten by loneliness, and he welcomed the young men into his house. At first Jason couldn’t fathom how this ugly little man could have fathered such a handsome, desirable son, but over time, Jason began to peek beneath Alders’ unpleasant facade, and caught glimpses of a complex and intriguing man. Alders seemed to have that richly stimulating personality that his son totally lacked. Father and son were indeed opposites. And there lay the rub. As the days progressed, Peter’s image began to tarnish.

As always, Mr. Banis has drawn a set of noteworthy characters to enjoy. They are delightfully complex, as is the situation they find themselves in. I particularly relished Alders, with whom I wholly identified with. I felt he was painted by a master artist.

I could almost call this a coming-of-age tale, except that the protagonist was already of age. In this short but potent story, however, Jason comes to a definite maturity, a realization of what kind of foundation a satisfying relationship is built on. And once the light illuminates in his head, he has the courage to change his life in a most appropriate way.

The ending is not exactly what I define as happily ever after, but it is by all means a satisfying one. The author leads his characters, as well as the reader, down a path to where no other ending would gratify the reader, which is the mark of a gifted writer.

I can highly recommend this story to all readers.

http://www.vjbanis.com/

Dead of Night by Victor J. Banis

2011-02-16T19:40:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by MLR Press
Pages: 215

Newly released from a mental hospital, Calvin Sparrow returns home to resume life in the house he was raised in, which is also the house his parents were brutally murdered in. Calvin’s years or therapy were an attempt to heal him of the traumatic psychological wounds of his being in the house that deadly night, of witnessing the killings. But Calvin has lingering issues.

With the help of his brother, Bobbie, and a maid/cook, Mrs. Hauptman, Calvin begins to take to his new life, living alone in that grand and empty house. On the first full moon, however, Calvin hears sounds, voices from that deadly night so many years ago. He finds himself reliving that night all over again. But then the voices go away, until the next full moon. And each time they come back, they grow stronger and more sinister, and Calvin grows weaker and more desperate to free himself of his past.

I’m not a fan of horror or ghost stories, but I say must have this tale had me hooked from the first few pages. Is it a ghost story, or is it a study of a man’s insanity slowly taking him over? I can’t answer that question. The author skillfully leaves that up to the reader to decide.

This story clearly demonstrates why Victor Banis has become one of my favorite authors. He delves into his characters, pealing back the layers as he ratchets up the tension. As the story anxiety intensifies, more of the character’s deeper psyche is exposed. It’s really quite brilliantly done here.

About halfway through this story, I began to wonder how in the hell it would end. I’m usually very good at anticipating how an author with wrap up all the loose ends and bring a story to a close, but not this time. Not only did Mr. Banis keep me guessing all the way to the thrilling last pages, but he left it up to me to decide how it ended. Without giving any of the story away, I can say that I was both surprised and delighted when I read that last page. It was much more than I had hoped for.

Like all the tales I’ve read from Victor Banis, Dead of Night is a superb story that I can highly recommend to anyone who loves impeccable prose, wonderfully complicated characters, and a delectably teasing plot.

http://www.vjbanis.com/

YU by Joy Shayne Laughter

2011-02-10T01:52:00.001-08:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Open Books Press
Pages: 226

Ross Lamos has built a successful career in dealing with Asian art and antiquities. His specialty is jade carvings, and his astonishing gift is his psychic touch, that is, whenever he holds jade, the stone’s yu (its internal chi power) reveals its history to Lamos. He sees visions of what the stones have witnessed.

The story begins when a mysterious woman enters the antique shop where Lamos works, asking him to appraise three carved jade stones. The stones are all from the same period, Han Dynasty, and worth millions on the black market. Lamos has never worked with such exquisitely crafted carvings before. They are the work of a master craftsman. But more than the stones’ value, Lamos is intrigued by their history.

One by one, he holds the stones, and they tell three connecting stories of a forbidden love in China’s Imperial Court during the Han Dynasty. Within this unfolding tale, Lamos comes to realize that both he and this mysterious woman, in their former lives, played a part in this unfolding drama.

Each stone presents a piece of the puzzle that tells of a love between a prince and his father’s concubine, and the poet caught up in the middle of a deadly game of intrigue. But which former life did Lamos play? He will do anything to find out.

This story is so smart and so polished that I found it nearly impossible to believe that it is Joy Shayne Laughter’s debut novel. It is one of the most delightful books I’ve read in several years. I truly loved every scene, every page, every character.

Each character is richly drawn and complex, as are the relationships between the characters, both in contemporary times and ancient past. Interlaced with the three views of the past, are Lamos’s own tribulations with his career and gay love life. The author delicately weaves the past and present stories together, enticing the reader into this mystery, giving only glimpses of the whole, until it all comes together in a shocking and unpredictable ending. It left me stunned.

Joy Shayne Laughter has, with this one novel, risen to the top of my favorite authors list. Her delectable prose carries the reader along in an enchanting dream. She has demonstrated the power to captivate me with wonderfully unique characters, effortlessly drawing me into their drama, and then crushing my senses with an overwhelming love story.

My only complaint with this novel is that I have to wait until the author’s next release in order to enjoy more of her superb talent. For anyone who relishes romance novels or mysteries, this is a must read. Brava!!!

www.joyshaynelaughter.com

Baby Doll by Mykola Dementiuk

2011-02-03T01:40:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Synergy Press
Pages: 56

A fourteen-year-old boy growing up in New York City discovers that, after a flirtation with a middle-aged woman, his sexual longings are surging and beginning to consume his life. He soon meets a man in a public restroom at the East River Park, and they have sex.

A few days later, after the boy has tried everything to find this man again, the boy ends up following another man home. This new man introduces the boy to cross-dressing, and also to unprotected sex. As the boy returns to the man’s apartment daily, his appetite for cross-dressing blossoms into something utterly consuming, something more enthralling than sex with this dumpy, older man.

Just when it looks like they will fall into a younger/older relationship that will continue on, the older man pushes the relationship in a different, darker direction.

This tale delves far deeper than an adolescent’s sexual experimentation with cross-dressing and sex. It peels back the layers of a brash teenager as he discovers new wonders about the world of sex and about himself. The reader feels his desires and yearning to be pretty, to be wanted and admired; feels the thrill of slipping on sexy silk undies, and walking in heels; and also feels the pain of an abusive relationship as payment for the prospect of continuing to dress up. The author has done a splendid job of getting into a boy’s head and making the reader live his life.

The story is sensual, and perhaps heartbreaking. It has dark underpinnings as well as the joys of discovery. It not only delves into cross-dressing, but also cross-generational relationships, and ideas about what’s masculine vs. what’s feminine.

Beneath these characters and themes, is the author’s superb writing that seamlessly presents the story and draws the reader into this seedy world. This is by no means a feel-good story. It hit me in the pit of my stomach, rather like watching a fatal car crash and not being able to turn away. It is a bold and courageous work that I can highly recommend.

http://mykoladementiuk.com/

Tricks By Rick R. Reed

2011-01-29T00:19:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Victor J. Banis
Published by MLRPress.com
ISBN 978-1-60820-215-7

Rated 4.5 out of 5

By now readers are surely so accustomed to having Rick Reed scare the pants off them that it must be a welcome change to see him achieve that same result by means of romance. I don’t know if this is Rick’s first venture into the romance genre, but he shows as much aptitude for it as he has always done for horror and suspense, and he can surely get your pants off – or at least down.

Not that this novel is without suspense, but while that element adds a bit of frisson to the reading pleasure, it is really the unlikely relationship between his two protagonists that holds the story together and propels it forward, a classic case of opposites attracting. Think Hepburn and Grant in Bringing up Baby.

The beautiful Arliss, at age twenty two, is a stripper in a gay bar, Tricks. Sean, whose looks are more average, is thirty seven, and on the nerdy side. A breakup with his boyfriend, Jerome, brings heartbroken Sean into the bar one night, in time to see Arliss perform. Arliss takes note of the stranger, so unlike the men who make up the usual crowd and, oddly intrigued, works his way down the bar, intending to check him out more closely—but Sean leaves before that can happen.

Later that same night, however, they meet on the shore of Lake Michigan. Arliss delivers an impulsive kiss and when that proves welcome, he fully expects that they will do the usual and go home for some high octane sex—but to his surprise, Sean, who is not into one night stands, declines. Instead, he makes a date for dinner a few nights later.

So begins a relationship that is entirely unlike anything either has experienced before. A teenage runaway, Arliss has lived on the mean streets and has a decidedly checkered past, yet somehow he has managed to retain a certain virginal air, but Sean is the first person to really tune into this and appreciate Arliss for what he is inside. And in conservative, genuinely kind Sean, Arliss finds a kind of love he has never met before. Being with Sean is like being “home.” Despite their differences, the two become a couple.

Of course, this is a novel, and circumstances threaten. Sean is able (if barely) to put aside his unhappiness at Arliss’s “work” at Tricks, but when an attractive customer suggests something further, things go bad, and from bad to worse. This secondary plot supplies a bit of menace and suspense, but the real interest remains where it was from the first, with this seemingly mismatched couple who turn out to be so exactly right for each other.
A nice romantic read, and a welcome change of pace from this prolific author.

http://www.rickrreed.com

Tricks by Rick R. Reed

2011-01-22T00:05:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by MLR Press
Pages: 191

Arliss had a lot to be thankful for. He had managed to escape the small, nothing of a town and his abusive parents with no more than the clothes on his back and the price of a bus ticket. Now he paraded his sexy, near-naked, twenty-two-year-old body in front of a packed house at a strip club in Chicago’s infamous Boystown neighborhood. He had money in his pocket and was in high demand, burning the candle at all ends. But as thankful as he felt, he had a dream of moving beyond the groping hands and hungry stares at the strip joint. With his limited education, he felt his big break could only come from the male-porn industry. He wanted desperately to become a porn star.

Sean didn’t know what had prompted him to enter the Tricks strip club that night. He had recently broken off the relationship with his lover, and loneliness had driven him from his apartment. Being an intellectual and old enough to have become sedate, he didn’t approve of such places, but he needed to have people around him, to be part of a crowd. Then a dancer – young, hung, gorgeous, with an innocent smile – made him forget his loneliness, and everything else for that matter. His lust erupted, and his embarrassment forced him to flee the club.

Hours later, sulking near the lake shoreline, Sean looked up to see that same stripper. The boy introduced himself as Arliss. Loneliness had driven them both to the same spot, or was it fate?

This is an opposites attract story, which may sound familiar – at least it did to me. What is not familiar is the way the author draws you into each character, and makes you feel their longings in your gut. Mr. Reed has a keen insight into the loneliness and hopes and insecurities that drive people, and he shows off his talents with this story.

The outward plot is not a complicated one, but the inner journey these characters trudge as they traverse the pitfalls of an older/younger relationship is both complicated and hypnotic. The author not only pulled me into the story, he made me believe I was both characters, needing to abandon the harsh world and merge to become whole again. It was a very emotional journey.

At the beginning of this story, Arliss longs to become a porn star, Sean prays to return to his ex-lover’s arms. Saint Therese once said, “More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones,” which is a theme I’ve often used in my own writing. Mr. Reed skillfully demonstrates this premise for an unforgettable plot twist.

I can highly recommend this story. It’s fun, sexy, emotional, and satisfying. Bravo Mr. Reed.

http://www.rickrreed.com/

P’tit Cadeau By Anel Viz

2011-01-15T00:34:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Victor J. Banis.
Publishced by Silver Publishing
ISBN 978-1-920468-58-3

Highly recommended

The narrator of the story, Ben, is told before he meets Jean Yves that the boy is a simpleton, unemployed because unemployable. He is pleasantly surprised instead to find the young man is both attractive and likable—but, Ben is sure, straight, and he accordingly resists his growing attraction.

This is a highly readable and intensely romantic novel. Anel Viz penned this before the highly acclaimed Memoirs of Colonel Gérard Vreilhac and, to be honest, it occasionally shows. It is a charming and erotic story, to be sure, and the author writes well, if with just a tad less assurance here than later. And, about that title – the petit cadeau is, literally, the little gift that the French hustler mentions at first meeting, to let you know he expects to be paid.

It is of note that the novel is written from the single narrator’s Point Of View, which can sometimes cause writers problems with developing the other characters in the story, but this is nothing more than lack of craft and can (and must) be overcome. As an example, there could hardly be a more resolutely single POV novel than Daphne Du Maurier’s 1938 suspense classic, Rebecca. Every character in the book is completely realized—even the dog has a recognizable personality, and the villainess, Mrs. Danvers, is fully dimensional, yet everything and everyone is seen only through the eyes of the unnamed narrator.

How did Ms. Du Maurier achieve this result? Exactly the same as we do in our lives, which after all we each of us live with our own single POV. People tell the narrator things, either directly, or indirectly, remarks are overheard, gestures noted, facial expressions, even silence. One forms opinions, makes judgments, gets a sense of the people with whom one comes into contact. The narrator is only imitating what happens in real life. From such hints, even the single narrator is able to offer the reader a book filled with living, breathing characters instead of cardboard cutouts.

I don’t want to make overmuch of this, but I stress it because every writer who opts to do a novel with a single narrator POV must face this problem and overcome it, or settle for producing something less than his best.

Nor do I want to suggest that this novel does not work because of this lack. It works quite nicely, in fact, because the author wisely focuses on the three essential characters that he has drawn well, and keeps his story closely tied to them.

The narrator, Ben, is beautifully drawn and, really (and appropriately), this is almost entirely his story. So we watch him encourage an unhappy younger man, struggle with his sexual desire and gradually and against his will, fall in love. It all rings true.

The second “character” is Ben’s art, which is something quite apart from the rest of him, but essential to his nature (and a major element in the story) and this is handled with the skill of a master craftsman. By the time I finished reading the novel, I could almost have sworn that it had been illustrated. You can actually see the sketches, the paintings, the drawings, as Ben produces them. And, they are not something tacked on to “show off,” they are entirely integral to the story.

The third character is Jean Yves, the young man with whom Ben falls in love, and he is somewhat less convincing. When he tells about being abused as a child, for instance, I simply did not believe it. But the character is complex, and develops wonderfully in the course of the story, making up for any lapses, and over the course of the pages we see him grow from a young man (much younger it seems, than his actual age of 22) drifting in an unhappy and idle life to full manhood and a successful career. By the end of the tale, Jean Yves seems the senior of the two lovers.

There are some highly erotic passages, some humor, and a wonderful sense of place—Southern France and various locales in Italy come vividly to life. And, as an aside, the cover is absolutely perfect, a rarity.

Murder On Camac by Joseph R.G. DeMarco

2011-01-07T03:09:00.001-08:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Lethe Press
Pages: 393

Christian historian and author Helmut Brandt uncovers shocking evidence he believes proves that the decades-old death of Pope John Paul the First was not due to natural causes, but rather, the result of a murder plot that links several high-ranking members of the Church. In this day and age, wielding such damning accusations like that could get a fellow dead, and of course, it does just that. Brandt is gunned down in a gay neighborhood of Philadelphia. When the police choose to push the case to a back burner, calling it a typical mugging gone bad, Brandt’s lover, Timothy Hollister, calls Marco Fontana onto the case.

Marco has his hands full managing a bevy of male strippers called Strip-Guyz, who perform at the local gay watering hole. He doesn’t have time for the case, but a suspicious chain of events pulls Marco into combing through the local Catholic hierarchy as well as crawling through the seedy gay hangouts in the sleazy parts of Philly. Marco brings in a colorful cast of characters to help with his investigation, and goes up against an even more imaginative lineup of suspects. Things seem to be going nowhere until Marco’s life is threatened. Dangerous people and powerful forces are intent on stopping Marco’s investigation. Slowly, clue by clue, Marco uncovers a fascinating knot of intrigue, deceit and murder.

In many ways this is a typical murder mystery. It starts with a murder, and evolves to the point where there is perplexing evidence and suspects lurking in every direction you look. Then the list is narrowed until you think you know who and why, but of course, you don’t.

There are, however, a number of elements that make this story stand well above the typical. The foremost is the entire cast of unusual characters. These people are interesting and fun, with characteristics that challenge the reader. Marco in particular is well drawn and as believable as any protagonist you’ll come across. One of the more interesting things about Marco was revealed by the nature of the case; he was forced to examine his own Catholic upbringing and his feelings about the Church. The author uses this to bring added depth to the character in an interesting and intelligent approach.

Another shining element is the dizzying number of subplots that are constantly evolving throughout the story, most notably, the entire managing-the-strippers subplot. It skillfully adds a playful sexiness to an otherwise dark storyline. Normally when I read a story with this many subplots, it becomes confusing and things tend to drop through the cracks, but not here. The author skillfully develops each subplot and then ties them together for a satisfying ending.

I did note two minor issues with this read. The first, I ran across multiple situations that were a roll-my-eyes coincidence that couldn’t have really happened, but was needed to make the plot work. I normally ignore one or two of these in a story, but it makes an impression after three or four.

My second issue was a bit more serious. Through much of the story, Marco interviewed one character, after another, after another. Many of the clues were revealed through long sessions of dialog, which is not necessarily bad, unless it is over done. I felt the author could have introduced more action scenes to break up the dialog and reduce the monotony of all these long interviews.

These two issues, I assure you, are minor. I feel this is a well-written, interesting, fun story that kept me guessing until the last ten pages. I can highly recommend Murder on Camac to all lovers of the mystery genre.

www.josephdemarco.com/mystery_latest.php

Alan Chin’s Top Ten Review Picks for the 2010

2011-01-01T02:10:00.000-08:00

Selecting only ten books from the ones I reviewed this year is extremely difficult, because if I reviewed a book, that means I enjoyed it, even if I had minor issues with it. In addition to the forty-three books that I did review this year, there were another twenty that I did not finish or review for one reason or another.

And let me state that this list is not to say that any of the books on my list are necessarily "better" than the others I’ve reviewed over the year. Not all books resonate with everyone the same way. It's simply a judgment call. These are books that resonated with me, both during and after the reading.

I’ve listed my top ten picks below, in no particular order. I’ve also added an addition five books that I thought were in some way special and deserved an honorable mention.

My Top Ten Reads:

A Man of Principle by Victor J. Banis
After a night at the opera, an elderly man decides to have a nightcap at a favorite watering hole to prolong the inevitable of going home to an empty apartment. But while enjoying the comforts of a twelve-year-old, single-malt scotch, he meets Neal MacIntyre, and they form a fragile bond.
Neal is nursing his well scotch, trying to make it last until closing time. He doesn’t have the money for another drink and he has no place to spend the night. Out of pure kindness and a desire for conversation, the elderly man offers him both – first a drink, then a couch to sleep on for the night. Neal happily accepts. But once the two are at the man’s apartment, Neal begins to tell what events brought him to that apartment. He tells a gripping tale of love and friendship, gain and loss, treachery and murder.

West With the Night by Beryl Markham
West with the Night by Beryl Markham is the autobiographical account of Beryl Markham, the first woman (lesbian) commercial pilot in Africa, back in the 1930s and ‘40s. She describes her childhood growing up on a farm in Africa, and also about learning to fly and becoming a successful commercial aviator. Towards the end of the book, she describes her history-making flight over the Atlantic, flying from Ireland to Canada.

The Secret Historian by Justin Spring
Drawn from the diaries, journals, letters and sexual records of the novelist, poet, and university professor Samuel M. Steward, this biography is a reconstruction of one of the most bizarre lives in modern gay culture.
An introvert English professor by day, sexual renegade by night, Steward was an intimate friend of Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and Thornton Wilder. He also claims to have had sexual relations with a number of famous, or soon-to-be-famous, men, including Rudolph Valentino and Rock Hudson.

Counterpoint, Dylan’s Story by Ruth Sims
Near the end of the Nineteenth Century, Dylan Rutledge has two obsessions: composing music and Laurence Northcliff, his history master at the Bede School for Young Gentlemen. When all others turn against Dylan for the wild and unorthodox music he composes, Northcliff is the only one who encourages his dream. The two fall deeply in love, but it is a forbidden love in England, punishable by long prison terms at hard labor.
But Dylan’s passion will not be put down. He alienates himself from family, friends, and country when he moves to Paris to study music and live openly as Northcliff’s lover. Although he finds happiness in the arms of Northcliff, he pays a heavy price being out, even in Paris. At every turn, his career is fraught with disappointment, rejection, and eventually a devastating loss that shreds his soul. Can his music bring him back from the brink? Can the love of a man be the strength he needs to survive?

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
A Single Man is a day in the life of George, a man who recently lost his male lover in an auto accident. From waking up, to having breakfast, to driving to work where he fantasizes and converses with co-workers and students as he goes through his day as an English professor at a state college in Los Angeles. While George steps through his routine, the ghost of his dead lover, Jim, flits in and out, a constant reminder that no matter how many people George surrounds himself with, he is still alone. George is an outsider. He is British living in L.A., gay living in a heterosexual world, brilliant among dull students and colleagues.
George’s day is simple and routine; however, the author creates a rich and complex text where the reader is able to become the protagonist. The reader experiences George’s debilitating loneliness, his anger and resentment with society, and the walls he keeps between he and his “friends.”

Normal Miguel by Erik Orrantia
Miguel Hernández leaves Mexico City to complete a one-year teaching internship in the rural hills of Puebla. He is a serious teacher, who traveled away from home and family for the first time. But before he can begin teaching classes, he has a sexual encounter with the local baker, and later meets Ruben, the gay owner of the local candy store. These meetings lead him down a path where it is impossible to keep his private and professional life separate, or even secret.
This is story of Miguel’s self-discovery, which is aided by his students, the director of the school, the baker, but mostly by Ruben, who becomes both friend and lover. But of course, Miguel’s journey becomes rather stormy when people of his small rural landscape begin to notice the bond he and Ruben develop. Homophobia rears its ugly head. Can the lover’s survive the threat of small-town bigotry and the influence of family?

Native by William Haywood Henderson
Blue Parker, the twenty-three-year-old foreman of a Wyoming ranch, has a secret crush on his ranch hand, Sam. The two cowboys are drawn to each other, and Blue makes plans to place Sam in a high-mountain cow-camp for the summer (ala Brokeback Mountain), thinking he will have Sam to himself in this idyllic getaway setting. But before he can act on his plan, Gilbert, a Native American who fancies himself a Two-Spirits (gay), draws a drunk Sam into a lewd dance at the local honky-tonk. The other cowboys begin to suspect Sam could be queer. The result is that Sam is later beaten to within an inch of his life in the alley behind the bar. Once Sam is released from the hospital, Blue moves Sam into his own cabin to care for the younger cowpoke. This move casts suspicion on Blue as well.
The events that unfold in that drunken night on the dance floor will drive Gilbert across the western states looking for his place in society, while Blue must choose between the home he loves and the man he loves, all the while the three men are bound on a second collision course.

Deep Water, A Sailor’s Passage by E. M. Kahn
Gene lives and works in Manhattan, but he spends much of his free time sailing the waterways in and around that metropolis, from New York harbor, to Long Island Sound, to Martha’s Vineyard. He hires a woodworker, Kevin, to work in his shop, and the two soon become lovers. Kevin is a decade younger, a handsome blond, and emotionally needy. Gene considers himself lucky, and commits to this relationship wholeheartedly, even though Kevin likes to sleep around. They manage a fragile relationship.
Although Kevin does not share Gene’s love of sailing, he acquires a small skiff and learns the sport. As their relationship deepens, so does their love for the sea, and for adventure. Gene trades his nineteen-foot daysailer in on a twenty-two-foot boat so that they can take overnight trips. As the years roll by the boats get more seaworthy and the trips longer. Sailing solidifies their relationship. Their love for each other seems bound to their, now mutual, love of adventure on the water.

The Moonlit Earth by Christopher Rice
At thirty years old, Megan Reynolds is an outsider in her affluent hometown of Cathedral Beach, California. She has recently come home with her tail between her legs after losing an altruistic job and her free-thinking boyfriend in San Francisco. Living with her mother, with financial help from her cousin, she finally lands a dream job that will allow her to start over.
Half a world away an explosion rips apart a Hong Kong hotel, killing 60 people. Security cameras partially record this apparent act of terrorism, showing a Middle Eastern man leading an American away from the building only moments before the deadly blast. Watching the media broadcasts, Megan recognizes the American as her beloved gay brother, Cameron.
As the media and the FBI line up to embroil her brother in a terror campaign, Megan is the only one who seems to know he didn’t’, couldn’t, do such a thing. But no one can find Cameron. He has gone underground. Playing the role of White Knight, Megan flies to Asia to find her brother and prove his innocence. Her journey pits her against her mother, her estranged father, a wealthy tycoon, a royal family, and the FBI.
With the clock ticking and bullets flying, Megan uncovers the last thing in the world she was looking for, family secrets so shocking that it will rock her entire universe.

Impossible Princess by Kevin Killian
Impossible Princess is an anthology of finely crafted, edgy short stories that walk on the razor’s edge between camp and noir, exploring both the humors and bizarre sides of desire. There are ten stories, some written solely by Killian and some written by Killian with collaboration from others. The collection has five stories that didn’t appeal to me and five stories I found captivating, sexy, brilliant and a fun edgy ride.

Five Honorable Mentions:

Gaylias: Operation Thunderspell by Kage Alan

The Zagzagel Diaries – Denial by Bryl R. Tyne

Boy Behind the Gate by Larry Jacobson

L.A. Boneyard by P.A. Brown

The 38 Million Dollar Smile, a Donald Strachey Mystery by Richard Stevenson
.

Butterfly's Child by Alan Chin

2010-12-28T21:09:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Bob Lind, Echo Magazine
Published by Dreamspinner Press, December 2010
Pages: 280

Middle-age is a time of change for Cord Bridger, a talented NYC musician who begun to give up on things ... his dreams to become a famous concert pianist, his secure but unfulfilling dead-end job at a piano factory, and a relationship that has made him feel more lonely and unloved by the day. He finds himself returning to his boyhood home in a small remote Nevada town - which held bad memories he never wanted to revisit - due to the death of his grandmother, who had raised him after the death of his mother and abandonment of his father. After the funeral, he learns his grandmother was survived by her lesbian lover, Juanita, and that he apparently has a teenage son, Kalin. The boy's mother (his former girlfriend) quickly leaves Kalin and her younger son Jem with Cord and Juanita, to take care of "some business" with her ex-husband in California. That business becomes Cord's business, as he struggles to win over his disapproving son, deal with potential new love, and keep everyone safe from a threat he may have underestimated.

I've made no secret of the fact that Alan Chin is one of my very favorite authors, and he continues to amaze me with the variety of complex, diverse, character-driven outstanding fiction he manages to write. Though I thought he went a bit "over the top" with this one in parts, it is definitely an exciting, emotional page-turner of a story, and nobody could have done it better. Five stars out of five, in a clear Nevada sky.

http://alanchin.net

The Geography of Murder by P. A . Brown

2010-12-28T20:18:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by MLR Press
Pages: 273

Jason Aaron Zachary knew it was bound to be a bad day when he woke up next to a corpse who’d hours before had had his head bashed in. But things quickly grew worse as he was yanked to his feet and cuffed by a Santa Barbara Police detective named Alex Spider. A few hours later he was booked for murder one and sent to the county lockup to await arraignment.

Detective Alexander Spider, an openly gay police officer, had an immediate gut level attraction to Jason, but the kid was the kind of punk going down the toilet fast. Jason looked like he was into drugs, hustling , and about to be slapped with an open-and-shut case of murder one. But something didn’t smell right about the case. It seemed too easy, like someone had set the kid up to take a fall.

When things looked darkest, Jason couldn’t believe it when Spider paid him a visit in the county lockup, telling him there was new evidence that proved Jason’s innocence. Hours later, Jason found himself free from jail and riding home with this macho detective stud. Once at home, what Jason thought might lead to some hot sex did, but things got rough, and rougher, and rougher still, until it became clear that Spider intended to beat him into submission, and then own him, body and soul. Jason had leaped from one prison to another. But this new prison had its advantages…

This is not the first P.A. Brown novel I’ve read. So when I picked up this book, I expected a well-plotted murder mystery with the focus on sniffing out clues to solve a difficult murder or two. What I quickly realized was, although there is a murder case for Spider to solve, the guts of this story is a BDMS romance between Spider and Jason – one that takes them from being enemies on opposite sides of the law to painfully exploring the boundaries of a rather kinky relationship.

This story is unusual in that it is told in first person from two different protagonists. Each new chapter switches the narrator, first Jason then Spider, and so on. This POV swapping was slightly jarring at first, but it permitted the author to dive deeply into both characters’ persona, and allowed the reader to know them both intimately. My only issue about this POV switching was that both voices were similar. I felt that the author could have put more effort into making each voice more distinct.

This tale reads fast, and has the author’s usual spot-on attention to detail. The prose is raw, giving insight into the characters behind the words. Yet all too often the author used a word that was so inapt that I was jerked out of the story to ponder the choice of words. One example would be, “He jumped in the car. Cranked it on.” I couldn’t help wonder, how do you crank on a car that was built after 1915? But of course, that is only one of many examples.

The main issue I had with this story was purely a personal one. I didn’t like one of the main characters. I found Spider to be quite the hypocrite. One minute he was on a soapbox making speeches about pedophiles who can’t control their urges, and the next minute he had Jason chained to a wall and whipping him before having unprotected sex. It is difficult to be excited by a romance when you detest one of the players. But like I say, that was purely a personal issue. Most readers will not share my prejudices.

These two characters are drawn together, then struggle to overcome several obstacles. The author skillfully pulled me into their drama, and although there were relatively few sex scenes, they were hot. At times the sex went over the top for my old fashioned sensibilities, but never enough to keep me from flipping to the next page to see what happened next.

P.A. Brown is an exceptionally talented writer, and although I do not consider this story to be on the same level as her other novels, it is a well written, absorbing, and entertaining romance that I can recommend.

http://pabrown.com/

Tainted Blood by Sam C. Leonhard

2010-12-28T00:56:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Romance Junkies Reviewer: Christina
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press  
Release Date: May 2010

Blue Ribbon Rating: 5

Gabriel Jordan has lived on the streets most of his life. His only source of income is the occasional jobs taking photographs for a private detective. Gabriel only gets offered the worse jobs that no one else wants and he gets paid practically nothing. As a result, he is barely surviving but he has no other choice. One night Gabriel is standing out in the freezing cold waiting to catch a cheating spouse in the act when he sees something far more interesting instead. Gabriel sees a man jump out a window but instead of falling he floats harmlessly to the ground.

Dr. Aleksei Tennant is shocked but intrigued when he is seen by a young man as he jumps out of an apartment window. Gabriel should not be able to see him. When Gabriel proves resistant to his magic, Aleksei is intrigued enough to invite him home. Gabriel has peaked his curiosity and he is determined to find out why his magic doesn’t work on the other man the way it should.

Gabriel goes home with Tennant despite his misgivings about him. Tennant begins teaching him about the magical world. Tennant is an expert at opening portals that connect many hidden worlds to this one. As they spend time together a friendship begins to form between them. When Aleksei reveals that he is investigating a series of murders Gabriel is determined to help, even though he risks revealing how important Aleksei has become to him.

TAINTED BLOOD by Sam C. Leonhard is a novel that reminded me why I love reading. I was hooked from the first page and I could not put this book down. The world building is creative and richly detailed. I was enchanted by the idea of hidden worlds that exist along side this one, worlds where many different kinds of supernatural creatures live. Humans know about these worlds but they are terrified. Anyone suspected of having the blood of a paranormal creature is persecuted. This world sparked my imagination and felt very believable to me.

Gabriel is an admirable and captivating character. He’s had a hard and lonely life living on the streets. As a young child he was often ignored by his foster parents. He has no idea what its like to be loved or cared for. When he meets Tennant he is understandably wary but as he gets to know the other man he finally learns what its like to have a friend. Aleksei is a unique and extremely intriguing character. He is intense and mysterious. For much of the novel I wasn’t completely sure he could be trusted. Although, it is obvious he cares for Gabriel he also has his own agenda. There is something different about Gabriel and he is determined to discover what it is. Their relationship is somewhat unconventional but very touching.

TAINTED BLOOD also contains an absorbing mystery. Someone is brutally killing people with a mixed heritage. The mystery investigation is well plotted out and held my interest. The murders are chilling. The mystery is interwoven with Gabriel and Tennant’s story in a very realistic and exciting way. The ending of the story leaves room for a sequel. There is still more to discover about Gabriel. I hope I will have the opportunity to visit these characters and their world again.

http://dreamspinnerpress.com/blog/2010/05/03/tainted-blood-sam-c-leonhard/

A Man of Principle by Victor J. Banis

2010-12-27T01:25:00.000-08:00

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Amber Quill Press
Pages: 17

After a night at the opera, an elderly man decides to have a nightcap at a favorite watering hole to prolong the inevitable of going home to an empty apartment. But while enjoying the comforts of a twelve-year-old, single-malt scotch, he meets Neal MacIntyre, and they form a fragile bond.

Neal is nursing his well scotch, trying to make it last until closing time. He doesn’t have the money for another drink and he has no place to spend the night. Out of pure kindness and a desire for conversation, the elderly man offers him both – first a drink, then a couch to sleep on for the night. Neal happily accepts. But once the two are at the man’s apartment, Neal begins to tell what events brought him to that apartment. He tells a gripping tale of love and friendship, gain and loss, treachery and murder.

I’ve mentioned before that Victor J. Banis is one of my favorite authors, both for the vivid characters he creates and for his flawless prose, and in A Man of Principle, he does not disappoint. From the first paragraph I was drawn to this nameless elderly man, and could feel his loneliness and need. With a few well-chosen brushstrokes, the author paints a complete and compelling portrait of a man with not much to look forward to – someone who is waiting for something, and who perhaps spends his time savoring his past like his single malt.

With equal skill, he creates a younger man who is running from his past, a past that he can’t really run from. As the story unfolds, these two personalities bond in a unique way that is both touching and sad.

This story made me do something I seldom do: after reading the last word, I flipped back to the beginning and read it again – not for more clarity, but for the pleasure of a simple yarn told with skill and passion. Banis’s gift at crafting short stories is humbling. Take away one word and there is loss, take away any sentence and the beauty is diminished. This is not a story he whipped together in a day or two. It takes talent and patience to produce this kind of quality. This is a story I can highly recommend.

www.vjbanis.com

The Boy Behind the Gate by Larry Jacobson

2010-12-23T22:07:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Buoy Press
Pages: 414

As a seven-year-old boy, Larry Jacobson often stood outside the gates of the marina near his home in Oakland, California, staring at the sleek sailing yachts nestled in their births, and dreamed of sailing the seven seas. His fantasy, even at that young age, was to circumnavigate the world. That aspiration remained dormant, wrapped in a cocoon for over forty years, waiting, waiting, but always pressing on his heart. The Boy Behind the Gate is the nonfiction account of the author fulfilling his life-long dream.

This is not simply a sailing story of shimmering white-sand beaches, tropical lagoons, and exotic ports of call. It is the hard and gritty sea tale of overcoming fears and insecurities, of dealing with the harsh and glorious displays of nature, of facing loneliness. This is a story of a gay man who risked everything for uncertainty and adventure, and in the process, reinvented himself. It is an account of personal strength and perseverance. Oh, and did I mention love? Yes, this is also a gay love story, not only of Jacobson’s love for the sea, but also his falling in love with Ken, his first mate.

On December 7th, 2001, Larry Jacobson walked away from a successful career and a long-time lover. He, his first mate, Ken, and a skeleton crew boarded a fifty-foot sailing yacht, Julia, stowed their provisions, made last minute preparations, waved good bye to friends and family, sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge, and pointed the bow south. They would not see that beautiful orange span again for another six years.

Jacobson had never captained an ocean going vessel before leaving the safety of the west coast of Mexico to cross the Pacific. He was not prepared for what lay ahead, but the unrelenting ocean served as teacher and guide, humbling his ego one minute, inspiring him the next.

Most of the entries of this book are presented as entries from the author’s personal journal and also emails written during the voyage. Don’t expect beautiful prose or lofty accounts of exotic cultures. These are gritty entries of a sailor and adventurer. The author’s mood comes through with each entry. The reader definitely gets his frustrations, fear, loneliness, his surprises and joys.

As a fellow world traveler (although I cross oceans from thirty thousand feet) I found this account fascinating. Jacobson describes many places I have visited, and his descriptions and insights are spot on. He managed to take me back to those destinations and let me relive my experiences there, from lagoons on Bora Bora, to the beauty of New Zealand, to diving the Great Barrier Reef, to the temples of Egypt, and the bustle of Istanbul. I thoroughly enjoyed his accounts of places I’ve been and others I hope for visit.

I only had one issue with this book. While Island hopping across the Pacific, the author seems to fall into a monotonous pattern of describing a fantastic island paradise, then a mechanical breakdown that impends the trip, then a horrendous storm that threatens their lives, then starts the pattern again with a tropical paradise. Not that it’s dull, but he does this multiple times, and, for me, it got too repetitious. And speaking of mechanical breakdowns. In the six-year voyage, everything that could possibly break did. I felt the author dwelled too much on his frustration of these incidents, and felt he could have cut half of them out and still made the point of how frustrating a journey like this can be.

The following is from a poem by the author taken from the book:
I have stood at the edge
Of the oceans.
I have stared in awe
At the power before me,
That pulled and tugged,
Until there was only the sea.
I left my life behind
To become a wanderer.
To explore, to live on the edge,
To search for something.
For that one thing that could satisfy
The urge that comes over me,
To keep moving, to wonder, to see.
I have circled the globe,
Sailed the seas,
Stared into death’s eye.

This tale is more than one man’s account of finding himself. This is a roadmap to finding one’s dream that anyone can follow, no matter what your particular desire is. It will also motivate readers to follow their own dreams at all costs. I can highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever imagined doing something great, something others fear, something that presses on their heart.

http://larryjacobsonauthor.blogspot.com/

Book Review: A Taste of Love by Andrew Grey

2010-12-17T18:28:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Dreamspinner Press
Pages: 187

Darrel is living the dream life. He had always wanted to own his own restaurant, and that’s what he’s done. He is the main chef and owner of Café Belgie. He has his dream job, good income, stylish home. What could be better? Someone to share it with. Then Billy walks into his café asking for a job.

But of course, things are never that easy in love. Billy is penniless, a decade younger than Darrel, and he is the caretaker of his two younger brothers – five-year-old twins. But then, he’s also gorgeous and charming. This is a romance, so those obstacles to love don’t outweigh the positives, and Darrel jumps in with both feet. But as the story wears on, complications arise, and our hero must fight to hold his family together.

This is a simple, romantic, fast-paced story. It’s what I call a beach read – one where neither the characters nor the plot are too deep, so one can easily follow along without the need to concentrate. It is often funny, often heartwarming, and ends on an up-note. The characters are charming and at times overly sweet.

I came away with two trifling complaints. First, I felt the story, pretty much throughout, was in need of a stringent editor with a red pen to tighten the prose. Second, there are a number of sex scenes that I felt were overly long and uninteresting. I should point out that I seldom appreciate sex scenes cluttering up the pacing of a good story, so this is possibly a reflection of my own prejudice.

The last thing I’ll mention is not really a complaint, but I was slightly disappointed that there were no descriptions of Darrel cooking up fantastic dishes. I had falsely assumed going into this story that much of it would take place in a kitchen, and there would be mouthwatering narratives of preparing exotic foods. There were certainly opportunities to add something of that nature to spice up the story, yet there was almost nothing of the sort.

My slight criticisms did not detract from my enjoyment of this read. It is, in the end, an engaging romance that leads the reader through an array of emotions, and leaves them feeling good. I can recommend this story.

http://www.andrewgreybooks.com/

The Woman I Was Born to Be by Aleshia Brevard

2010-12-13T20:24:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Victor J. Banis

Publisher: Blue Feather Books

I have long believed that of all the peoples gathered under the GLBT umbrella, the Ts—the transsexuals—are the one who garner the least respect. Life in today’s world is certainly not a paradise for the gay male, but in many ways he does have it better than the lesbian. Although I have known a number of bisexuals, I’ve never thought that they had it so bad, although it must surely be painful to know that one does not quite fit in either the gay or the straight world, and is likely to be viewed with suspicion, if not hostility, in both.

But, the poor trannies—and I am going to eschew political correctedness here and admit right up front that I am almost certainly not using the correct terminology because, frankly, I don’t know it. So, when I refer to trannies, I mean them all – the drag queens, the sex changes, the cross dressers. I know they see themselves as separate from one another, but one thing they all share—except among their own, they are too often likely to be scorned by all the others of our supposed community. And even among their own, as this book makes clear, they are not always free from attack.

The Woman I Was Born to Be is Aleshia Brevard’s second memoir, following The Woman I was Not Born to Be. I have not read the first book, but in the second she provides a sort of road map of the events covered in the first. In any case, there is little cause for confusion.

Aleshia Brevard was born Alfred Brevard Crenshaw in 1937. Christine Jorgensen’s sex change (as it was generally called then) in 1952 was headline news throughout much of the world. Alfred Brevard Crenshaw had his own gender reassignment surgery in 1962, after stints as a kept boy for a Catholic priest and a female impersonator at the famed Finnochio’s in San Francisco. What followed was a life of some surprising successes—as a Playboy bunny, a Vegas chorine, and a sometimes actress in movies, television and on stage.

The book is slight, in every sense of the word. There isn’t much depth here. It’s mostly of the, “and then I did…” and “then I went…” variety. The Aleshis comes across too often as somewhat self absorbed and at times downright silly, like a caricature of an Auntie Mame type, herself a caricature. On the other hand, she also shows herself repeatedly to be generous and kind, to her peers, her students, even her enemies. And more than once she displays an admirable resilience, even courage, in standing up to adversity. Which is to say, she has her faults, like all of us, but plenty of redeeming qualities. By the time I had finished this book, I felt that I knew her pretty well, and liked her.

The chief interest here, however, is not in reading about the ups and downs of Aleshia’s volatile career or her several marriages, but in watching a self-admitted sissy survive a hazardous childhood and an adulthood punctuated, not surprisingly, with a great deal of bias. This is especially refreshing in the current epidemic of childhood suicides as the result of bullying. Alfred, and later Aleshia, suffers no end of bullying—not only from schoolmates but domestic partners, even from an emotionally hobbled father—but she finds her own kind of triumph and eventually comes to terms with the woman she is. And though she fusses a great deal about aging, if the picture on the back cover is to be believed, the beautiful young starlet turned out to be a handsome septuagenarean.

In short, this is a sort of print version of the “It Gets Better” videos currently going viral. This publisher bills itself as “books by women, for women,” but if I could have my wish, I would personally hand a copy of this to every young person suffering today at the hands of bullies, so they could read this story of how one individual’s life did indeed get better. In the best of all worlds, every one of those unhappy youngsters would benefit from reading Aleshia’s story.

That won’t happen, of course. It seems our society would rather protect them from the positive encouragement they would find here than from the negative discouragement that leads to those suicides we keep reading about with dismaying frequency.
Still, I give this woman a hearty high five and a tip of the cap. She deserves it just for getting through. Lots of others didn’t.

Butterfly’s Child by Alan Chin

2010-12-12T20:31:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Jeff Graubart, author of The Quest For Brian
Pubished by Dreamspinner Press
Pages: 274

Rating: Five Stars

From opera to horse opera, Alan Chin takes the reader on an exciting journey into the rough and tumble West in Butterfly’s Child. In the early chapters, Chin uses his literary skill to make us feel the Zen of piano tuning, much as he did with tennis, in the Match Maker. But, he has a more difficult time exploiting that talent for the Zen of barren life on a dilapidated ranch. Perhaps that is intentional, since there is an undercurrent of violence that runs through the novel like the Bitter Water River runs through the Nevada land.

Although Butterfly’s Child seems to be a formulaic family values western, its greater-than-life heroes are gay men and lesbians. Chin shows us an extended family whose roots are as old as humanity and as new as same-sex marriage. At the same time, he weaves a tale of three fathers and three sons. We are treated to the thoughts of Jem, a seven-year-old boy, as he begins to understand his own sexuality. The close bond between Jem and the hero, Cord, is reflected by the two of them sharing in the telling of the story.

My only criticism of the novel is its excessive machismo. I wanted to strangle Cord when he failed to bring in the sympathetic sheriff for the climactic showdown. But that too, is probably intentional. A gay super hero whose reason is clouded by love for his family is a powerful political statement.

Butterfly’s Child is a pleasure to read. You can read it for pure entertainment or something deeper. Even the title is both an obvious metaphor and several more subtle ones. Alan Chin continues to establish himself as a writer of intelligent and entertaining novels.

alanchin.net

Match Maker by Alan Chin

2010-12-12T20:25:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Jeff Graubart, author of The Quest For Brian
Pubished by Dreamspinner Press
Pages: 374

Rating: Five Stars

When Alan Chin describes the Zen of tennis, and shows us his players in action, he is at his best. The nail-biting games, crowned in spiritual wisdom, will keep the reader, even those like me who know little of tennis, on the edge of their seats. Tennis fans will gobble it up.
Chin’s attention to the details of coaching suggests this is a work of autobiographical fiction instead of intensive research. Surprisingly, his biography suggests the latter.

Match Maker is sexy, funny, and exciting. It is about homophobia in the sport’s world and gay pride. It is a love story, but mostly it is about hope, direction and the resiliency of the human spirit. Hollywood never produced Patricia Nell Warren’s Front Runner, but they have a second chance, and a much better one at that, with Alan Chin’s Match Maker. But don’t wait for the movie.

alanchin.net

The International Homosexual Conspiracy by Larry-Bob Roberts

2010-12-12T01:22:00.001-08:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Manic D Press
Pages: 158

The International Homosexual Conspiracy is non-fiction. The author presents a series of cultural polemics on an array of contemporary topics that pokes fun of the gay lifestyle and the absurd homophobic idea that gay’s recruit young people into our community – from gay community, to writing, to popular culture, and mostly on homosexuality in general.

In this collection of short essays, Larry-Bob Roberts offers funny, thought-provoking insights into the absurdities of modern queer culture. The writing is tight and fast paced.

For me, this book was akin to reading someone’s blog entries over the last year. Some topics are purely fun to read, others witty, some made me consider my own behavior. There was nothing earth shattering in these pages, nothing that changed my opinions or behavior concerning life, gay or otherwise.

I found these bite-sized discourses, like I find many blog entries of favorite writers, interesting and engaging. Fans of satire will enjoy this book, and will no doubt fined ample opportunities to laugh, at themselves and everyone else. I can wholeheartedly recommend this book.

http://www.amazon.com/International-Homosexual-Conspiracy

Strings Attached by Nick Nolan

2010-12-08T01:39:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Amazon Encore
Pages: 327

When his mother is sent to rehab for alcohol addiction, closeted teenager Jeremy Tyler is sent to live with his dead father’s relatives. In a matter of a few days, he goes from poverty in Bakersfield to the posh world of Ballena Beach. While struggling to fit in, Jeremy joins the high school swim team, dates a popular girl, and begins to think he’s landed in paradise – until is great aunt Katharine begins to make demands, playing him like a puppet. Then a mysterious phone caller insinuates that his father’s accidental death was no accident.

As Jeremy grows accustomed to the lifestyles of the rich and famous, so grows his curiosity about his father’s death. What he doesn’t realize is that the closer he comes to the truth, the deeper in danger he falls. He must race to unravel the clues before he meets his father’s gruesome fate.

This is an enchanting story. It moves well even though I felt the author went into much more detail than the story needed. It weaves a murder mystery, sexual ambiguity, and characters with hidden identities and agendas into an entertaining tale.

I feel that the closer the reader is to the late-teen/early-twenty target audience, the more enjoyment they will find in these pages. Not simply because this is a coming-of-age tale, but also because that age group won’t mind the thin characterization of the cliché characters. However, there are a few sexual scenes that take it out of the realm of the typical YA novel, which I felt was a mistake on the author’s part. Better to have toned down those scenes for a younger audience, in my opinion, because neither the writing nor the plot is strong enough for a more sophisticated audience.

What made this story for me was the character of Jeremy. Thin, yes. Cliché, yes again. But his youthful confusion, mistakes, yearning and wise cracks are charming and delightful, and carry the read through any shortfalls of the storyline.

I don’t feel that the author’s attempt to emulate the Pinocchio theme is well integrated, but frankly, it doesn’t matter. This is a gay boy’s coming of age yarn, with a somewhat darker tones that I’m used to seeing, but even with these opaque shades, the author keeps the tone light and moving, which makes for an enjoyable read.

http://nick-nolan.com/

The Outhouse Gang By Neil Plakcy

2010-11-19T12:37:00.000-08:00

Reviewed by Victor J. Banis
Published by Untreed Reads, 2010
Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Have you ever seen a friend after a separation and not quite recognized him at first glance? That’s what happened to me with Neil Plakcy’s new novel, The Outhouse Gang. In the past, the author’s works, mostly mysteries and some erotica, have been pretty high-test and this one is decidedly low octane.

I like to see an author taking a chance, which is the case here. Artistic courage separates the real writer from the hack. As I’ve said often, only the mediocre artist is always at his best. He reaches a certain plateau and never goes beyond it—often, in fact, never knows there is a “beyond.” But the true artist is never content, is always reaching, striving, trying to get it right, and righter still. Plakcy here has stepped away from his writing “comfort zone,” and that in itself is to be applauded. Did he get it right? Well, yes…mostly.

The story is set in the small Pennsylvania town of Stewart’s Crossing starting in 1963. To give their lives a little punch, a group of men steal an outhouse on the night before Halloween and leave it in front of the town hall. This becomes an annual event and the locals, not knowing who they are, dub them The Outhouse Gang.

From this somewhat slender thread the author hangs a series of vignettes, alternating from the viewpoints of the various men in the group, and covering the years up to 1988. This was a tumultuous time—the Vietnam war, the cultural revolution, hippies, drugs, the increasing independence of younger generations—and it’s interesting to see it as a backdrop (and a contrast) to the small town lives of the characters. This is a big canvas to cover, however, and the cast of characters is large, so much of the story is sketched in where sometimes I would like to have seen it painted large.

There’s some very lovely writing here, as one would expect from this author. Here, for instance, and very early on (giving you a good sense of what is to come) he tells you much about the marriage of the hardware store owner by saying little: “During the day he wore a canvas apron over his plaid shirt and jeans. Stray nails, twist-ties, plastic bags, washers and odd pieces of paper always ended up in the pockets of his apron. He’d take it off at the end of the day, puzzled by how much he had accumulated. It was like that with his marriage, too.”

It’s a joy to see this talented writer stretch his wings, but not entirely an unmitigated joy. A couple of bad habits that pop up here and either weren’t there in his writing in the past, or were so minor as to go unnoticed. For one, he has gotten into telescoping plot developments. We see almost all the punches coming before he lands them. There are very few surprises here.

For another, he tends now and again to talk down to the reader. “‘Remember that prank we pulled last year?’” one of the characters asks another. “Sandy laughed. ‘We stole an outhouse in the middle of the night and left it at the town hall,’ he said. ‘How could I forget?’” In reality, neither the other character nor the reader needed to be reminded of so much information. People talk more in shorthand when discussing something they both already know. Or, he could have edged the remarks with sarcasm simply by adding, at the end, “that.”

Still, the shortcomings are few and minor and most readers will enjoy the book. How well they enjoy it depends upon what one is looking for in a read. If you’re seeking heart-stopping excitement, this isn’t the place to look, and if you want to test wits with the author, you’ll probably have more fun with one of Mister Plakcy’s first rate mystery stories. Much of what I’ve read from this author in the past is challenging, the kind of fiction that charges boldly forward, where this novel tends to meander—like taking a stroll in a small town. Still, it’s a pleasant stroll on which he leads us and familiar to anyone who has lived in a town like this, or anyone who lived through the years covered. It succeeds, and admirably, on charm and a certain nostalgic grace, and those are virtues I think over neglected in today’s fiction-world. And I, for one, am glad to see a different side of the author.

http://www.mahubooks.com/
.

The Rest is Illusion by Eric Arvin

2010-11-04T16:20:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Young Offenders Media
Pages: 186

At a small college in the Midwest, a cast of characters are unwittingly moving towards a night of magic, a night where the stars align, and destinies are changed. On this night, Dashhel Yarnsbrook – a beautiful, yet, troubled gay student – prepares for death. While Dash struggles to find meaning in his life before death takes him, his three friends and one enemy struggle with their own impediments to attaining adulthood. As the story unfolds, each character must travel their own path, and face their own truth. And for some, a touch of Divine guidance helps them along their path.

I was a bit confused by this story. The simplistic plot and somewhat cliché young characters convinced me that this is a YA novel, yet the vocabulary is geared to a much more sophisticated reader. Still, flowery vocabulary aside, this is a wonderful coming of age tale, full of magic and characters stumbling towards adulthood.

The characters, although lacking depth, are likable and I couldn’t help but cheer them on. There are many touching moments, both sad and happy. I felt the blending of magic into the story worked well. It was not overdone like I’ve seen in other novels.

My one issue with this novel is that I felt it was over written. As mentioned above, the flower prose often went overboard, and when it did it pulled me out of the story and made me notice the writing, instead of being absorbed in the story. For instance, the author wrote: “She sensed what was to come before it happened, and in that second, lying outside of perceived time and place, Sarah let out a great sweeping cry of sadness and regret. It flew past all the known realms of sound, and parted the clouds in the sky.” It’s beautiful writing, yet I often found it over the top.

This is a powerful coming of age story for young adults, one I’m sure that many will be able to identify with, and perhaps help them discover that spark of magic within themselves that will help them down their own path. It is a very unique story line that is both entertaining and inspirational. This is a novel I can highly recommend.

Nerdvana, An anthology edited by Fred Towers

2010-10-25T08:55:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Victor J. Banis
Published by Star Books

4 ½ out of 5 stars

As a general rule, I don’t pick up books of hardcore erotica. That is not a judgmental thing—a few decades ago, I might have approached them with considerably more enthusiasm, but I am an old and well traveled bridge (in the words of a song from WWI, “tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching…”) beneath which a lot of water has passed and today those bodily parts and their various functions hold few erotic surprises for me.

On the other hand, the premise of this one—that the biggest sex organ is the brain—corresponds very closely to my own thinking. I have always found intelligence sexy. What’s more, looking at the list of contributors, I immediately spotted one of my favorite authors, Bryl Tyne, so I knew at worst I could count on at least one genuinely satisfying read.

My expectation was unduly pessimistic, however. What I found was a collection of stories in which, with the majority of them in any event, you could take out or water down the sex and still have some pretty good (if a bit lean) reading. And it is kind of sexy to see writers celebrating the nerds and the geeks, at least to my way of thinking. Hey, you may even recognize yourself. I did. I suspect a great many gay men were nerds as well—more, anyway, than were the hunks and the jocks, however fully they dominate the fictional scene. And to be honest, a slight young thing in spectacles and a ready blush has always been far more of a turn on for me than a football hero.
I’m not going to attempt to review each of the fifteen stories individually, but I would hate not to mention:
Exposed, by Bryl Tyne – yes, just as I expected from this writer, a well rounded and intriguing story, though I confess I’m not very up on computer games. Still, it seemed convincing to me, which is what a good author does, and Bryl does particularly well.

Gan Haatzmaut Yerushalayim by David Muller – I don’t think I’ve ever run across a gay story set in Jerusalem, so I had to give this one marks for that, at least. But it is quite creative apart from that, and the settings felt authentic. It reminded me very much, in fact, of some stories I’ve heard from a friend who has been there. His tales made me wish I could go, and so does this one. If it weren’t for all that tramp, tramp, tramping over the bridge.

A Night in Midgar by Augusta Li – more video games (you see, I really am a dinosaur) but in this instances two con attendees assume the roles of the warring characters, with steamy results. Sort of like if Batman and Robin went at it. Hmm, did they, or was that only in my dreams? If you had the same kinds of dreams, you’ll appreciate this one.

Hardboiled by Landon Dixon – another genuinely creative piece of erotica as the author takes the author in and out of various fantasies – sort of Walter Mitty on a double dose of Viagra. Stylistically very nice, and it does have a hard boiled voice to match the title.

The Bully on the Playground by Helen E.H. Madden – this seems at the start to be somewhat run of the mill, maybe in part because it’s the last story in the book and by then we’ve already come upon (oh, those puns do get away from me) a number of bullies, but the author has surprises in store, and the story goes off on a much darker track. The endings to erotic stories are generally pretty predictable, but this one is not.

That I singled out these few examples is not to suggest that the others in the collection are sub-par; they are not. There’s no pretense of high literature here, whatever that is (someone recently asked me to define “literary story” and the best I could come up with was “tiresome”) but these stories are vastly better than the old Tijuana Bibles that I knew in my salad days. The anthology as a whole is far meatier (another pun!) than your average collection of whack-off stories. Exactly how one will respond to this kind of thing really depends on what a reader is looking for in a book, but if that is plenty of sexy action with a genuine nod to story values and good writing, he will almost certainly be happy with this collection.

http://fredtowers.blogspot.com/

Big Diehl, The Road Home by George Seaton

2010-10-24T16:50:00.001-07:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Publisher: MLR Press
Pages: 407

After six years of service to his country, during which he saw combat duty in Iraq, Big Diehl has received his discharge from the Army and is headed back to Wyoming. His only goal is to confront his father for the repeated molestations he suffered as a boy. But before he can even things with his old man, Diehl finds himself in the center of a homicide investigation and on the run from the law. When it looks like his “adopted” family in Casper can’t help him, he is comforted by a stray dog, who turns into a true friend. Can Diehl resolve his issues and pick up life where he left off six years earlier? Possibly, but that road home is a long one, with plenty of blind curves.

I happen to think that George Seaton is a very talented writer. I thoroughly enjoyed his first novel, Big Diehl. And although I liked this sequel, The Road Home, I had a number of issues with it, so I’ll get them out of the way up front.

The thing I was most surprised with, was the extensive back story. I expect a sequel to give some back story to set the scene and remind me of a few plot points of the previous work, but this back story droned on for over a hundred pages, recounting everything that happened in book one. Since I had read book one, I found the recap boring and unnecessary. Even for someone who had not read book one, this back story was, in my opinion, not needed, because the author gives plenty of back ground while he tells the current story.

This author has a wonderful and unique voice. His slow, country-twang voice alone puts the reader in the Wyoming territory. But I found myself getting annoyed at phrases that kept popping up over and over and over. I lost count of the times he mentioned “six years” and “tin house” Those and others felt like a mantra popping up every other page. At one point during a bar scene, the author used the term “tipped his drink to his lips” four times on four consecutive pages. These repeats pulled me out of the story each time I tripped over them. That, along with other minor issues with the text, made me think that the prose was not as polished as the original Big Diehl.

The last negative I’ll mention is that this story centers around a homicide, which brought a great deal of tension and suspense to the story, and was good. It really peaked my interest. Yet, I felt that the resolution to the crime came too early in the story and was too easily resolved. It left me slightly disappointed.

That all said, I can whole-heartedly recommend this book to all readers. As I’ve stated above, Seaton’s voice is a joy to read, and the story and characters kept me turning pages well into the night. This is a story about love, and family, and even the bond between humans and animals. There are so many touching scenes that are handled with consummate skill. The characters pull the reader into their issues, their hopes and desires, to the point where the reader is not sure how s/he wants the story to end. This is a worthwhile read for people who place integrity and family above everything else, but by all means, feel free to skip the first hundred pages.

Pelota By Sarah Black

2010-10-21T08:48:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Victor J. Banis
Published by Changeling Press
ISBN 978-1-59596-839-5

4 ½ stars out of 5
Sarah Black is one of my favorite writers, and like much of her writing, this one is about two young men from different cultures—in this case, Inuit and Basque. Oliver, though he is not Basque, is obsessed with all things Basque. Jack, Japanese American, is equally obsessed with all things Inuit, and neither of them quite fit into the societies in which they find themselves.
When the wreck of a Basque whaling ship is discovered in the arctic tundra, the two young men are separately sent to the isolated and now empty whaling camp of Red Bay in Labrador, to study, from their different points of expertise, the artifacts uncovered in the excavation.

They have the place to themselves and, at first, each convinced that his specialty is the more important, they quarrel over the primacy of Basque and Inuit culture. Did the Inuit game of handball come first, for example, or the Basque version, pelota? They challenge one another to a game, but in no time at all they have discovered a game they like even better, and an even more consuming passion, the pleasure to be found in one another’s bodies. With their growing love for one another comes a growing respect for the other’s point of view. Maybe Basque and Inuit do mix after all. Cultures aren’t meant to stand apart.

It is a sweet story, romantic and sometimes intense. The passions the two young men share seem to reflect the wildness of the setting in which they find themselves. The plot is minimal, but the characters likable and interesting. There’s a tendency to offer more information than a reader might want on the two disparate cultures, and here or there it felt to me like the author was in a hurry, but neither of these criticisms diminishes the pleasure of a good story, well told by an author who knows what she is about.

A fine way to while away an hour or so, and highly recommended.
www.sarahblackromance.com

Short Story Review: Tell Them Katy Did by Victor J. Banis

2010-10-10T16:24:00.001-07:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Untreed Reads Publishing
Pages: 9

A woman walks home in the early hours after sharing a few drinks at a lesbian bar. On her way, a sexy woman comes up and tells her there are five hoods following. They run and hide in a graveyard, narrowly escaping their pursuers. The woman who saved our heroine turns out to be Katy, but she disappears as quickly as she came out of nowhere. When our heroine visits another lesbian bar, trying to track down this mysterious savior, she finds an unbelievable story behind the woman.

This is a simple story, one that has been told in several different forms. The thing that makes this story immensely enjoyable is the quality of the writing. The author pulls you into the story by the third sentence, and keeps you there until the last word. A mere nine pages, but each page is packed with vivid descriptions and meaning. Every word counts. Remove one word, and the sentence is diminished. Take out one sentence, and the story’s structure falls apart. This is sparse writing at its best. With the fewest words possible, the author takes you on a most enjoyable ride.

I’ve said it before, Victor Banis is a master of short fiction. I can highly recommend this wonderfully-told yarn.

http://www.vjbanis.com/

Wandering the Rainbow by David Jedeikin

2010-10-06T16:33:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Holistic Ideas Press
Pages: 304

After striking out in a “committed” relationship, a friendship, and a not so exciting system’s engineering job, David Jedeidin decides to put a little distance between him and his problems. He embarks on a seven-month solo trek around the world. What unfolds is an array of sites and experiences that spans six continents. Traveling as a flashpacker – backpacking with creature comforts – Jedeikin writes about tourist sites, back-alley hangouts, and hooking up in gay nightclubs.

From Big Ben in London, to Table Top in Cape Town, to the ruins at Machu Picchu, Jedeikin’s travels detail everything human in a dozen different cultures. In addition to describing the sites and delving into local hangouts, this travel log gives a very real glimpse of the sometimes lonely, sometimes mind-expanding journey that a lone traveler must face.

The first thing that struck me about this book is the high quality of the writing. The prose is light and breezy, and carries the reader along effortlessly. The superb writing is how this travel log managed to keep my interest all the way to the last page.

As an example of his writing, check out this description of Cairo: “I stare out at the monstrous city, a liquid expanse of lights stretching to the horizon, and ponder the paradox: on the one hand, the cafes, street life, and urban chemistry make it one of the most exciting places on Earth – in many respects, it could be London, Paris or New York with a cultural and climatic twist. And yet…it’s hobbled, a great beast weakened by time and circumstance. Economically the country has been stagnant for decades. It feels as if Cairo is just lying in wait for Egypt to rise again, so it may once more take its place as one of the great centers of the world.”

Jedeikin did a nice balance of describing the sites and blending in his personal experience of dealing with people in foreign cultures. But what I found almost totally missing was the inner journey. Being away from friends and family, dealing with foreign tongues, laws and customs is hard-ass, lonely work. A person goes through radical changes, or should to my way of thinking. But there were only a few places in the book where the author opened up and talked about this inner journey, and how that affected his outlook on the problems he left behind. I was left wondering if the journey didn’t really change him, or if he chose to not discuss those changes with the reader.

Likewise, the author didn’t spend a of lot print giving insights into the local people, their outlook or issues in the world. It was as if he were more concerned about what sites he was seeing rather than the people around him. When he did talk about other people, many of them were Western backpackers like himself, which I didn’t find particularly interesting.

Having twice traveled similar around-the-world journeys myself, one for six months and one for eight, there were few destinations that the author mentions that I have not spent time in – Russia and South America – so I was able to get a pretty clear view of how deeply he delves into the culture at each location. My opinion is that although this book covers an extremely wide range of destinations, it only goes a few inches deep in any one of them. Of course, for Jedeikin to have gone into depth at each spot, the book would have been well over a thousand pages. So perhaps he hit a nice balance to keep the reader entertained.

My enjoyment of Wander The Rainbow is based on a simple and ancient premise: That the experience of other travelers is our best map to a strange land. Jedeikin’s stories will delight you, warn you, make you laugh, perhaps even shock you. He describes a spectrum of adventures that will deepen your understanding of different cultures and enrich your sense of what it means to be human. This is a book I can highly recommend to anyone who dreams of distant lands.

http://wandertherainbow.com/

Eye of Scota: Cinaed by Serena Yates

2010-09-29T18:06:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Dreamspinner Press
Pages: 202

The one thing that keeps the priests in power and the planet’s population from slipping into moral decay are the magical Slanach Stones. But when it becomes apparent that the current horde of stones are losing their healing power, The High Priest of Dalriata sends a young priest, Cinaed MacAlpin, to a distant land to gather more stones.
Cinaed’s quest leads him to the mystical Eye of Scota, a portal through space that links with Stonehenge on Earth, and the supposed source of the Slanach Stones. But instead of finding more stones, Cinaed finds Tadeo Banderas, the captain of a space ship from earth. Tadeo has been marooned on this planet, and is near death from an animal attack. Cinaed uses his only healing stone to bring Tadeo back to health, and in so doing, falls in love.
Through the Eye of Scota, Cinaed discovers that there is no need for more stones, because any depleted Slanach Stone will regenerate its power when a healing priest and a warrior, who are soul mates, physically bond. Thus, the only thing that can save the planet is the one thing the Council of Priest forbids under penalty of death.
Cinaed’s quest, with Tadeo at his side, turns into a pursuit to convince his own government to allow, even encourage, homosexual bonding.

I confess I have little experience with either Sci-fi or fantasy, and this story has elements of both, so I don’t know how this tale compares with others in the same genre. It is a light, fun, fast paced, delightful read. It is well written and often touching.

I found the character’s situations and their mystical world rather creative and interesting. The sci-fi elements were well conceived, but I felt the author holding back. For instance, the Eye of Scota is a portal to Earth, and I kept expecting someone to use it to travel to Earth, but that portal was never used. Instead it became an all-knowing voice with plenty of attitude. Another example was Tadeo’s phaser gun, which would have come in handy in the second half of this tale, but was somehow forgotten about.

The main characters are certainly likable, but didn’t have the kind of depth I generally look for in fiction. That could be because the characters’ internal arcs didn’t develop as they worked their way through the external challenges.

The issues I mentioned above are trivial, and didn’t take away from my enjoyment of this story. The one complaint I have is that the story felt a bit rushed. I saw numerous opportunities where the author could have expanded the story or gone into more depth, but chose not to. It seemed to me that situations were too quickly gotten into, but more importantly, too quickly resolved. I feel that this story could have easily been expanded into a much more satisfying read.

Still, that aside, there is much enjoyment to be had following these two lovers as they attempt to battle an established religion to bring about sexual freedom and equality, and save their world from decay. I walked away from this book hoping that the author has a sequel up her sleeve. I can recommend this book to anyone who enjoys highly creative tales.

www.serenayates.com

Match Maker by Alan Chin

2010-09-20T14:32:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Bob Lind, Echo Magazine

Published by Dreamspinner Press, September 2010,

Pages: 328

$17.99 softcover

The revelation that they were a gay couple forced Daniel Bottega and Jared Stoderling off the professional tennis circuit four years earlier. In the interim, Daniel was marking time as the tennis pro at a quiet country club in San Francisco, while Jared pretty much crawled into a liquor bottle to drown his crushed dreams. When Daniel is approached to train Connor Lin, a promising young prodigy whose tennis game needs focus, he decides to gets Jared involved as well. Besides getting Jared off drinking, it reawakens both of their spirits of competition. Jared goes from just helping Connor workout to being his doubles partner, and both begin to move up the ranks on their singles tournaments.

When the press covering one of the midlevel tournaments gets tipped off about Daniel and Jared's relationship, it results in rumors that Connor is gay as well (He isn't), and the trio experience bias from homophobic judges as well as receiving threats of violence. Determined not to quit again, they continue to compete, supported by good friends and Connor's second generation Chinese-American family. As if the pressure of competition and the homophobia wasn't enough to deal with, all three suffer physical and emotional obstacles that threaten to shatter their dreams.

In a word ... Wow! After reading his previous two novels, I expect outstanding writing from Mr. Chin, but this raises the bar far above any expectations I had. The story will remind you a bit of the gay classic "The Front Runner" in its intensity and "we VS them" conflicts, but I believe the story and characters are even more realistic and relatable here. It's the rare novel you may want to read numerous times, and is a great gift for anyone facing adversity. Beautifully and skillfully done, I give it five match point stars out of five. Bravo!

http://alanchin.net

Secret Historian by Justin Spring

2010-09-16T14:32:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pages: 478

Drawn from the diaries, journals, letters and sexual records of the novelist, poet, and university professor Samuel M. Steward, this biography is a reconstruction of one of the most bizarre lives in modern gay culture.

An introvert English professor by day, sexual renegade by night, Steward was an intimate friend of Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and Thornton Wilder. He also claims to have had sexual relations with a number of famous, or soon-to-be-famous, men, including Rudolph Valentino and Rock Hudson.

For most of his adult life Steward kept a detailed file of each sexual contact, of which there were well over eight hundred, and included the most intimate details of each encounter. As he grew older, he was drawn more into picking up rough trade, and enjoyed BDMS relations with his partners, where he always played the submissive role. Steward hooked up with Alfred Kinsey, and his sex file was instrumental in Kinsey’s landmark sex research.

He finally fled the academic world to make his living as Phil Sparrow, a tattoo artist on Chicago’s notorious South State Street. There he was able to meet a steady stream of sailors and rough trade, and kept the back room jumping. Later in life, during the early 1960’s, Steward moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, and through his Tattoo parlor in Oakland, became friends with many Hell’s Angels. Once in California, under the name of Phil Andros, he wrote a number of pro-gay pornographic novels and short stories.

Steward published three significant nonfiction books in his later years: Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos, a social history of American tattooing; Dear Sammy: Letter From Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, a memoir of their friendship; and Chapter from an Autobiography, a memoir of his life and times.

This book should have been titled “The Life and Times of an Underground Slut.” Through his twenties and thirties, he averaged a sexual contact every forty-eight hours, and he was convinced gay men had no business being in relationships. Keep in mind this was decades before Stonewall and gay liberation. Later in life, he enjoyed paying straight hustlers to force him into submission, and even had a one-page typed sheet explaining what treatment he expected of them.

Although I neither approve or normally enjoy reading about such behavior, it is a tribute to the author that I kept turning to the next page to find out more. This is an extremely well written biography. Sometimes funny, often times shocking, always vivid. I couldn’t put it down. Justin Spring is a huge talent, and even makes the most mundane topics seem interesting.

More interesting than Steward’s personal life, was the times that he lived, where being caught with another man could land you in prison, and many a man fell prey to blackmail. It was times when all gay men were driven deep underground, and even the mere suspicion of being gay would lose you your career. The author presents a fly-on-the-wall account of American homosexual subculture and persecution. It does make one appreciate how far we’ve come in fifty years.

This book is a journey, a long one, but well worth the time and effort. I can highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about gay life prior to Stonewall, or simply read the remarkable tale of a man who threw caution to the wind and lived the life he craved.

http://www.amazon.com/Justin-Spring/e/B001ITTMI8

The Lonely War By Alan Chin

2010-09-11T15:21:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Victor J. Banis
Pubished by Zumaya Boundless
Rating 5 stars

One of my favorite authors, Alan Chin invariably manages to combine an intriguing story with the kind of lush romanticism that seizes the reader and keeps him spellbound. I found his first novel, Island Song enchanting, and with The Lonely War, he has clearly matured as a writer.

A couple of problems got in the way of my full enjoyment of this novel, however, and I might as well get them off my chest. First, the author desperately needs another pair of eyes to look out for mistakes. I don’t mean the sort of typos that have become epidemic in today’s publishing and which I have despaired of ever seeing eliminated, but lapses rather more serious. Here, as one example, is a description from page 6: “he inhaled sharply, catching a whiff of Mitchell’s scent; beneath the pleasant odor of talcum powder he discerned the aroma of sweat moistened skin.” Three pages later, on the whaleboat carrying them to their ship, Andrew notices, “the faint scent of talcum powder mixed with sweat-moistened skin.” It is not simply that this jars, though it does. It is the kind of lapse the big-time critics love to pounce upon. Kirkus once speared me for repeating a description a couple of hundred pages later. They’d be all over this.

And since I’m carping, I will add that I felt some of the scenes in the Japanese prisoner of war camp strained my credibility. I’m not saying that they might not have happened as described, I have no real knowledge of life in Japanese war camps –for all I know, the author may be describing events that in fact happened in real life—which, alas, is irrelevant. In fiction, the litmus test is not, is something real, but does the author make it seem real for the reader. The Japanese camp, Changi, was reputed to be a hell-hole, but it comes across here sounding pretty cushy compared to my brother’s experiences as a prisoner of war in a German camp. I never get that sense of horror here that my brother’s tales and those of his fellow prisoners engendered, though in all fairness, horrific is not this author’s forte.

So, I waffled a bit over rating this book, because the flaws do diminish its impact somewhat, but in the end, what is good about it is so extraordinarily good that it simply outweighed any shortcomings. The prose is masterful. The characters are well drawn and believable. The pacing is beautiful and the ending is absolutely note perfect. This author always writes something more than just a story – he touches upon the universal truths, without ever becoming preachy. There is enjoyment to be had here, but there is wisdom to be gleaned from the book as well. Only the best writers manage that without short changing one or the other.

The Lonely War is a lovely read, touching, sometimes painful, sometimes humorous, and at all times vivid. Alan Chin remains one of my favorite writers. I always look forward to his next work and he is one of those authors whose work I never hesitate to recommend to others, as I do this one.

http://alanchin.net

Song on the Sand By Ruth Sims

2010-09-08T15:53:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Victor J. Banis
Published by Untreed
ReadsRating: 5 Stars

Tony Dalby is 86. Confined to a wheelchair in a nursing home, he lives on memories of an almost career as an actor and dancer, and of his one brief brush with stardom as a stand-in for Zaza in La Cage aux Folles. Angry at the world, he makes life miserable for himself and the staff who look after him.

Tony befriends a handsome young man, Drew, who comes to the nursing home every day to visit his “cousin,” Jesse. “He looks awfully young to be here,” Tony says of Jesse. Drew responds, “He’s twenty-nine today, Mr. Dalby. And he can’t even celebrate.” Tony is horrified. “Boys of twenty-nine didn’t belong in a place like this, a depository for old people with nowhere else to go…”Jesse, blind, deaf and paralyzed as a result of an accident, was an actor too, in community theater. Tony begins to spend more time thinking about Jesse and less about himself, and finds his pent up anger gradually melting.

I can’t tell you much more without spoiling the plot for you. Suffice to say, Song on the Sand is sweet, even sentimental, the kind of story that a writer of lesser talent could make sappy and saccharine, but Ruth Sims is too fine an artist for cheap effects. She paints her canvas with a master’s brush, and it would take a colder heart than mine (which is infamously cold) to read this story without a tear in the eye.

I don’t mean to suggest this is a downer, however. It isn’t. It’s about love - not romantic love, but love of life – and about reaching out, of bridging that vast chasm that separates us from one another. It is written with genuine charm, which is not as easy as one might think, but it is written as well with insight and a gentle sympathy for the human condition. Tony and Jesse and their song on the sand will linger in your thoughts long after you’ve finished reading. Highly recommended, but have a hankie handy.

http://ruthsims.com

Counterpoint, Dylan’s Story by Ruth Sims

2010-09-02T16:29:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin

Published by Dreamspinner Press
Pages: 314

Near the end of the Nineteenth Century, Dylan Rutledge has two obsessions: composing music and Laurence Northcliff, his history master at the Bede School for Young Gentlemen. When all others turn against Dylan for the wild and unorthodox music he composes, Northcliff is the only one who encourages his dream. The two fall deeply in love, but it is a forbidden love in England, punishable by long prison terms at hard labor.

But Dylan’s passion will not be put down. He alienates himself from family, friends, and country when he moves to Paris to study music and live openly as Northcliff’s lover. Although he finds happiness in the arms of Northcliff, he pays a heavy price being out, even in Paris. At every turn, his career is fraught with disappointment, rejection, and eventually a devastating loss that shreds his soul. Can his music bring him back from the brink? Can the love of a man be the strength he needs to survive?

This book is a joy to read. The story is well structured, the characters are compelling, the prose carries the reader along in a dream. I knew before opening the cover page that Ruth Sims has a gift for storytelling. I found that out in her book, The Phoenix. But Counterpoint is far and away a superior, more thoughtful read. Sims has created something rare, an absorbing read that takes the reader through the entire range of emotions, and then back again.

Does it have flaws? There is the occasional head hopping. There are several opportunities where showing, rather than telling, would strengthened the read. There are other places where the dialog is too on-the-nose. But these minor issues go unnoticed as the reader wraps these characters around himself like a cloak on a cold night, and feels their passion and pain. Upon finishing the last page I wanted to stand, clap my hands and yell, “BRAVO.”

This story was several years coming to print, and well worth the wait. If you’re looking for the kind of hot erotic scenes that have become so cliché in mm fiction today, then keep looking. But for anyone who enjoys passionate characters struggling with basic human needs, alluring prose, and historical detail, then I highly recommend this read.

http://www.ruthsims.com/

The Final Curtain by Victor J. Banis

2010-08-28T12:21:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Mykola (Mick) Dementiuk

I recently came across Victor J. Banis’ ‘The Final Curtain’ in an upcoming anthology of collected gay stories “Red,” with authors William Maltese and JP Bowie. In his story Banis goes back to a mode of writing that was so popular in the late 19th century to the beginnings of the 20th century: of relating a story within the story itself, as in the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, W. Somerset Maugham, Joseph Conrad among many others.

Banis weaves his tale in a peopled bar with gay men about with the lead character sitting alone in the back and looking up at no one. The story that he relates hooks us in and we’re caught up with what is happening…but can it be retold? How does Gaylord fade away while Nick still has the sin of his disappearance upon him? Or does he? Banis doesn’t tell us but like all great storytellers he pulls us into the story till we’re at the end, more intrigued and puzzled but strangely fascinated to read it over and over again --it holds you that much. Some short stories can be more intriguing than horrendously long novels and Banis has a winner here.

Banis has painted numerous tales over the years, “The Why Not,” “The Man from C.A.M.P.,” “Longhorn,” “Lola Dances,” “Angel Land,” and the best non-fiction book written in some years “Spine Intact, Some Creases,” among countless others. This short story ‘The Final Curtain’ again shows him at his best, playful but serious as he still experiments with his creative powers and melds another tour de force made so alive and active by his talent. A short but mighty read! I recommend this wholeheartedly.

http://www.vjbanis.com/

Book Review: The River In Winter by Matt Dean

2010-08-12T08:21:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Queen’s English Productions
Pages: 397

Jonah Murray is a seeker. He lives a comfortable life – good job, nice home, mother who supports him – but after the death of his lover, he feels lost, and needs help finding his way. Couple that with a series of hate crimes, and Jonah is at his wit’s end. He seeks love, acceptance and identity, but is not sure where to look.

Jonah meets Spike Peterson, a porn star who lights a fire of lust within Jonah. But the lust and love that Jonah feels is not returned, as Spike uses Jonah and then tosses him aside. Spike only magnifies Jonah’s need to find companionship.

After having a breakdown, Jonah meets a counselor, Eliot Moon, who seems to be able to help him. He is invited to join a group of gay men, only to find that the therapist and the men in the group are all trying to become ex-gay men. Jonah feels a hard need for the support he finds within this group, but he knows that to be accepted, he must make sacrifices, that is, give up loving men. Can a gay man find happiness through celibacy?

This year’s Lambda Book Award Finalist, Matt Dean, takes us on an inner journey through a rather icy spot in one man’s life. This is a story that uses excruciatingly beautiful language. It is Dean’s remarkable voice and exquisite prose that makes this novel special, and worth reading.

As for the story, it started with an interesting hook, and made me experience a range of emotions, but then it began to wander, much like the protagonist, down a path with seemingly no direction. It didn’t take long before my interest level began to plummet. To compound the wandering, the prose, though quite beautiful, was very detailed in its descriptions, which slowed the pacing to a crawl. I love rich descriptions, but only when it advances the plot, which this all too often failed to do. These two elements combined to make this, at least for me, a dull read.

The story often spouts Christian doctrine, which I personally found distasteful. Christians, however, will no doubt be untroubled by it.

This story was sometimes poignant, and made me examine my own feelings I experienced during troubling times, and it did so with wonderfully gorgeous language, which is why, no doubt, it earned a Lambda Finalist Award. For readers who like a slow, beautifully written journey, with rich descriptions on every page, I can recommend this read.

http://mattdean.info/

The Lonely War by Alan Chin

2010-08-09T10:25:00.001-07:00

Reviewed by Bob Lind (Echo Magazine)
Published by Zumaya Boundless

Andrew Waters is a Chinese-American young man, who grew up in China, schooled by Buddhist monks. His family is forced to leave China at the start of World War II, and he enlists in the Navy, where his personality and intellect make him clash with most of his shipmates. His latent homosexuality also surfaces, and he develops a strong crush on one of the officers, who empathizes with his situation. When the ship is destroyed and the crew is taken to a Japanese P.O.W. camp, Andrew makes the difficult decision to agree to become the base commander's lover, in exchange for food and medicine needed for his shipmates - including his crush, who was attacked by a shark in abandoning the ship. He tries to keep his role a secret, using the story that he is simply cooking for the commander, as he did on the ship. But his true role is revealed, and Andrew is ostracized as a traitor by most of the men. As the war starts to draw to a close, Andrew also learns of plans that could jeopardize all of their lives.

I first became aware of Chin through his "Island Song" novel, which I thought was exceptionally creative and emotional. This is in the same vein, with complete and realistic characterizations of both the ship's crew and their captors, reinforcing the truth that nobody really "wins" in a war. Andrew is torn by his sense of honor and need to excel, now tempered by the realization that some people won't like him, no matter what he does, and further complicated by his budding sexual attraction to an officer. It's a roller coaster of conflicts, fears and desires, all rolled together in a well-written war novel you won't be able to put down. Five stars out of five.

http://alanchin.net
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Book Review: Gailias: Operation Thunderspell by Kage Alan

2010-07-24T14:38:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Zumaya Boundless
Pages: 221

Nicholas and Anthony are not only secret agents working for the U.S. government, they are also lovers. Yes, a pair of gay 007s. Nicholas is the brawn of the duo; Anthony is the brains. They are opposites in almost every way, including the fact that Nicholas is Caucasian and Anthony is Chinese. And do opposites attract? Don’t bet on it. Only one thing is certain, when they come together, sparks fly.

They are paired up with Debora, a razor-tongued agent, and sent to a resort island in the Philippines where some very shady dealings seem to be going on, having to do with a new terrorist organization, ever-so-descriptively called, the League. But it’s not your typical sun-sand-surf resort island, it’s an S/M theme park, where all of the guests play a role as either a master or a slave. On this island, the Asians are the masters and the Caucasians are the slaves. Anthony is given an undercover guise that lets him be a master, while Nicholas must submit to being a slave. While Anthony has it easy, Nicholas falls under the brutal hand of The Ball.

Things become more complicated when they find they are not the only secret agents on the island. It seems that Rice and Christian are also there to acquire information; although it’s not certain which government they are working for. In all the confusion, bullets fly, buildings explode, helicopters are blown out of the sky. But do the good guys win? Do we even know who the good guys are? The only certainty is a surprise on every page.

Kage Alan is an extremely funny writer, and this novel shows him at his best. It’s much like watching a Marx Brother’s film, that is, if the Marx Brothers had been gay. Or more appropriately: a gay I Spy vs. Scooby Doo. Nicholas and Anthony spend the novel dissing each other, as only two witty and bitchy lovers can do. The only time they are not dissing each other is when they gang up to diss someone else. This novel has all the wit and banter that Kage Alan fans have come to expect.

There is nothing here to take seriously. It is a lighthearted romp with a couple of razor-tongued queens. The protagonists are in their thirties, which is a departure from Mr. Alan’s previous books. This humor is geared to an adult audience. On the one hand I appreciated the more mature humor. On the other hand, I think this book lost much of the sensitivity that Mr. Alan’s previous novels had, when Andy Stevenson was dealing with issues of coming out.

Still, if you're in need of a good laugh, page after page, then set your sights on Gailias: Operation Thunderspell, and be prepared to be entertained.

http://www.kagealan.com/index.php

Princess Of The Andes by Victor J. Banis

2010-07-23T16:19:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Untreed Reads Publishing

The Princess of the Andes is a freighter registered in Ecuador, making a trip from Los Angeles, through the Panama Canal, to Haiti. In addition to cargo, she also carries passengers looking for cheap transportation to Latin America. One of these passengers, Randolph Letterman, has signed on for the whole cruise to Haiti, and back to L.A.

Everything starts off fine. The weather is grand and they make good time. But as the trip progresses, Randolph makes himself into a bit of a bore. In an effort to be social to Captain Herrman and the crew, Randolph becomes too talkative, too much of a know-it-all, until he has everyone aboard avoiding him. The situation gradually becomes worse until Captain Herrman threatens to throw Randolph overboard so he can enjoy his meals in silence.

It is then that the ship’s doctor comes up with a plan. In his estimation, Randolph is a lonely, older, gay man who desperately needs to get laid. The Doctor suggests, that if they are to get any quiet, then someone from the crew should volunteer to satisfy the old man. That alone will shut him up. The Captain is willing to try anything, but whose to bell the cat?

For several years now, I have been a fan of Victor Banis’s work, whether it be a four-hundred page novel or a ten page short story, Victor puts the same level of artistic talent into everything he writes. And needless to say, I was not in the least bit disappointed with The Princess of the Andes.

I love his superlative voice, his quirky characters, his well-constructed plots. This story is a joy to read. It carries the reader along, and then gives him/her a playful little slap in the face at the end.

I’ve said it before, that I think it takes more talent to craft a short story than a novel, and Victor shows his considerable talent in spades. If you want to spend a joyful half-hour, read The Princess of the Andes.

http://www.vjbanis.com/

Gay/Lesbian Fiction Book Reviews

Gordan The Giraffe by Bruce Brown, Illustrated by A. Shelton

The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov by Paul Russell

Simple Treasures by Alan Chin

Book Review: Our Time: Breaking The Silence of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” by Josh Seefried

Butterfly’s Child by Alan H. Chin

Book Review: For the Ferryman by Charles Silverstein

Junction X by Erastes

CAREGIVER by Rick R. Reed

Deadly Kind of Love by Victor J. Banis

True Stories – Portraits from My Past by Felice Picano

August Farewell by David G. Hallman

Bob the Book by David Pratt

Butterfly Dreaming by Dave Lara & Bud Gundy

Captain Harding’s Six-Day War by Elliott Mackle

Kaleidoscope by Anel Viz

The Third Buddha by Jameson Currier

Woke up in a Strange Place by Eric Arvin

Simple Treasures by Alan Chin

Young Love, Too Soon Gone By Nowell Briscoe

Book Review: A Hundred Little Lies by Jon Wilson

Like Lovers Do by Lori L. Lake

Moffie by Andre Carl van der Merwe

Rite of Passage by Bryl R. Tyne

The Abode of Bliss by Alex Jeffers

Haji’s Exile by Alan Chin

Shattered Wings by Bryan Healey

Harlan’s Race by Patricia Nell Warren

Song On The Sand by Ruth Sims

The Last Deployment by Bronson Lemer

Traveling Light by Lloyd Meeker

Slant by Timothy Wang

The Emerald Mountain by Victor J. Banis

Shining In The Sun by Alex Beecroft

Retirement Plan by Martha Miller

Match Maker by Alan Chin

The Shakespeare Conspiracy by Ted Bacino

Legend of the Mountain Ash by Ruth Sims

The Quest for Brian by Jeff Graubart

Butterfly’s Child by Alan Chin

Tough Guy Erotica by Neil Plakcy

Traveling Light By Lloyd Meeker

The Voting Booth After Dark: Despicable, Embarrassing, Repulsive by Vanessa Libertad Garcia

First Person Plural by Andrew W.M. Beierle

My Uncle’s Wedding By Eric Ross, Illustrated by Tracy Greene

A Woman Like the Sea By Anne Brooke

The Immortals by Victor J. Banis

Dead of Night by Victor J. Banis

YU by Joy Shayne Laughter

Baby Doll by Mykola Dementiuk

Tricks By Rick R. Reed

Tricks by Rick R. Reed

P’tit Cadeau By Anel Viz

Murder On Camac by Joseph R.G. DeMarco

Alan Chin’s Top Ten Review Picks for the 2010

Butterfly's Child by Alan Chin

The Geography of Murder by P. A . Brown

Tainted Blood by Sam C. Leonhard

A Man of Principle by Victor J. Banis

The Boy Behind the Gate by Larry Jacobson

Book Review: A Taste of Love by Andrew Grey

The Woman I Was Born to Be by Aleshia Brevard

Butterfly’s Child by Alan Chin

Match Maker by Alan Chin

The International Homosexual Conspiracy by Larry-Bob Roberts

Strings Attached by Nick Nolan

The Outhouse Gang By Neil Plakcy

The Rest is Illusion by Eric Arvin

Nerdvana, An anthology edited by Fred Towers

Big Diehl, The Road Home by George Seaton

Pelota By Sarah Black

Short Story Review: Tell Them Katy Did by Victor J. Banis

Wandering the Rainbow by David Jedeikin

Eye of Scota: Cinaed by Serena Yates

Match Maker by Alan Chin

Secret Historian by Justin Spring

The Lonely War By Alan Chin

Song on the Sand By Ruth Sims

Counterpoint, Dylan’s Story by Ruth Sims

The Final Curtain by Victor J. Banis

Haji’s Exile  by Alan Chin