Anything Goes -- with John Barrowman and Torchwood

Here's everything you ever wanted to know about John Barrowman -- plus a lot you couldn't have imagined, and a few items you probably could have lived happily without knowing, but hey, if you're broad-minded it's all a chuckle.

Name me someone, anyone, who doesn't love John Barrowman?! Most people, though, would be tightly focused in on a couple of aspects of JB. It's going to be either Captain Jack Harkness who's their fascination, or it's going to be the very gayness of a very gorgeous actor who's out and always has been, or it could easily be the lure of the world of live theater.

In this book, you get to pick what you want, like you're strolling down the buffet table. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones ... I'm interested in the theater, and I'm interested in JB for his own sake, and I've been watching Doctor Who since about 1966, so anything that has DW or Torchwood in it or on it will send my antennas up faster than Uncle Martin's. (I could tell you coming out stories. What, coming out as gay...? No. Coming out as a Doctor Who fan. It was a harrowing experience, but the fact the place had gone gaga just recently for Captain Jack made it easy. I never came out as a DW fan back in the days of rubbery monsters and $2 spaceships. No guts.)

Anyway -- Anything Goes is basically the story of John Barrowman: The First 40 Years ... without omission, and with boatloads of detail, especially about his early years. Those chapters are endearing and amusing. His family (and his father especially) seem to have been fonder than usual of practical jokes, and JB grew up with an, uh, broad sense of humor that knows no shame. If you're of a delicate nature: be warned!

The Doctor Who and Torchwood years are obviously the last few chapters in a bio that's telling four decades of story. (I've heard a few criticisms of the book for this, but I can't see a good enough reason for being critical on this. Anything... isn't "Behind the Scenes with John on Torchwood." It's the story of the man's whole life, of which Jack Harkness features in the last few years. Be reasonable, guys.)

I hadn't realized that JB only "officially" came out to the world at large about five years ago. He gives the impression of a guy who was never "in," so I never thought to question his "in or out" status. I have to confess, my first experience with JB was in the Chris Eccleston season of DW, and like everyone else I was bowled right over. Anyway, the coming out parts of the book are light and easy ... Anything Goes also isn't any kind of "coming out" story. JB had it easy, it seems. I actually wish he'd written a bit more here, but it's possible there isn't anything else to write! If one's life isn't screwed up and traumatized, you just get on with your future, like the song says -- "Don't worry, be happy!"

Anything Goes is a very happy book. In a couple of places the humor isn't the kind of thing you'd want your dear old mom and aunt to read ... and maybe someone's romantic illusions will get a fracture or two ... but this is also a very male book: it's by a guy, about a guy, and one of the best, most interesting things about it, is that it opens a doorway into the mind and heart of a gay guy who's happy and successful -- and invites you in.

The book has loads of surprises which I'm not even going to get into here. It'd be like giving plot spoilers for a fiction book. Just because Anything Goes is non-fic doesn't mean you want somebody to tell you all the best bits before you read it! And do read it --

You can get it in hardback and paperback ... loads of fun, highly recommended! AG's rating: 5 out of 5 stars.

Here's John Barrowman online: http://www.johnbarrowman.com/, and right now you can get very good deals on Anything Goes at Amazon:



(There's also a bunch of Torchwood goodies which I'm going to be naughty and link you to here, as well. I know I should concentrate on the review in hand but ... what the heck, it's MY blog, and I'm going to bend the rules because ... well, because it's Torchwood. So here goes... I'll link a few, but seriously, link on over to Amazon and drool for a while!)

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LA's deep, dark heart ... Jackal in the Dark

David Patrick Beavers is a writer I don't know much about beyond the standard bio (born in California in 1959 and so on). Jackal in the Dark was his debut novel, and he went on to do at least six others, one of which is a sequel to Jackal... which stands on its own plot-wise. (I was never able to get a copy of that one in the 1990s; you can get it now, but with the shipping and exchange rate it'd come out at about forty bucks, and ... well, another time.)

Jackal in the Dark came out in 1994, and you knew from the first few pages, this writer was on his way to great things. Or should have been...

I wish I could tell you more about this gifted novelist, but his in-print career seems to have hit the rocky shoals at the same at as Mel Keegan's -- and probably for the same reason. (Josh Lanyon was another casualty). What happened? Well, it's a long sad story!

GMP was bought out by Prowler, which was in turn bought out by Millivres ... and Millivres decided, around 2000, that they had no interest in continuing their paperback list, so authors like Keegan, Lanyon and Beavers found themselves in limbo. MK tells the story in a few places. (If you're interested to know what happened -- what landed at least three great writers in the realm of the POD People, have a look at this: http://mel-keegan.blogspot.com/2008/07/blue-genes-and-gay-publishing.html.)

All three writers are presently marketing their own work, and I think they're succeeding. At least, I hope all three are doing fine, because they're all way too good to be stuck in this rut. Mel Keegan is online here, Josh Lanyon is online here; and I can't find a page for David Patrick Beavers anywhere, so I'm going to let Amazon take care of it for me:



Using those links as a start, you should be able to find DPB at Amazon -- but one could wish he'd get himself a website or a blog!

Jackal... is a deceptive book, just as DPB is a deceptive writer. It's a quick read (only 129 readable pages), and just right for a wintry afternoon, or maybe an interstate bus trip. It also has a sort of "neon art" cover which won't get anybody upset on a bus or train! The covers on a lot of gay books would easily get other passengers irate, but this one is okay.

The subject matter is ticklish. It about 1978 or '79, and this 19-year-old boy is running wild. It's all discos and drugs and sex. Retrospectively speaking, it's a wonder he survived, because AIDS was just showing up at the time, though it wasn't called AIDS yet. I recall it being referred to as GRD, which stood for Gay Related Diseases. Talk about passing the buck.

Jackal... is told in the first person by our 19-y.o. "hero" who is off the rails, and it can be a bit of a "weird read" for sober souls! But it's also funny, and sometimes touching, and the characters ring so true that what's really weird is that you feel like you've been there! The book is set in LA, which everybody on earth knows from tv shows. You also know the era from the same shows. If it wasn't Starsky & Hutch, it was SWAT or something. We all watched them.

So, this is the era and the place: the stage is set. Our wild hero careens through a lifestyle that's dangerous, and runs into some characters that show you just how dangerous it could get. Like Taylor, who's a barely-of-age hustler who's getting badly beat-up by his pimp. It's only a matter of time before our hero starts to wake up to himself. One day he starts to want love instead of sex ... he wants to belong, instead of drifting through an ocean of druggy parties and anonymous encounters.

Well, too bad: you can't always have what you want. Life isn't like that, and Jackal... is an up-close, in-focus look at the way it too-usually turns out. Unrequited love, callowness, fear, vulnerability, self-destruction ... death.

Jackal... sneaks up on you. At the start you think it's going to be a romp, an absolute blast that you'll enjoy with guilt because you know how dangerous all this is. By the end, you'll wish you had a tissue handy.

The writing style is so sparse, it's virtually bald, which is something you're either going to like or not. For me, it worked well. If the book has a downside, it's the baldness of the narrative (some people don't care for it, I know) and also the shortness of the book. It's only about 50,000 words.

The length of the story also makes me say, be careful what you pay for a used copy. The Millivres edition has been out of print for a long, long time, but copies are changing hands at alibris for $45! You can get it in a new edition from Lulu.com, published POD -- and I hope this indicates that DPB is going to follow in the footsteps of MK and JL and take charge of his backlist. I think the reprint from Lulu.com costs about US$17 ... but you can also get the original at a good price from Amazon.

Also, if you don't mind reading on-screen, you can get the ebook version of Jackal... free! There's a link through from this page: http://online-novels.blogspot.com/2008/08/gay-and-lesbian-novels-1.html. Scroll down to Jackal... and click onwards.

Highly recommended. AG's rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

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Being gay was dangerous ... The Mayor of Castro Street

Here's a book that's topical right now, because there's a major movie coming along ... it's also a very good book in its own right! The title tells all: it's the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay political figure in the US of A, who was shot dead by a rival political candidate, in 1978.

Correspondingly, Randy Shilts was the first openly gay journalist to make a place and name for himself in the US press (and have the nerve to write gay stories). He worked in San Francisco for The Chronicle (it took him six years to get hired on in a homophobic industry!) and from what I've read, he had known Harvey Milk personally.

So, no surprise that RS should have made the biography of this amazing, milestone figure his debut work. The book is a very good read. The style is practically what we think of today as "docudrama." Almost like a novel in large patches. It's like a great collection of dramatized "bites of life," that build up to make an overall picture of Harvey Milk in episodic installments. The writing style is very journalistic -- which works well, in the context of the book. I found the methodical, meticulous, leave-nothing-out approach very satisfying.

You could wish wholeheartedly that RS had written more books, but he only did three. He was an AIDS victim and passed away in 1994 at a tragically young age. Mayor... is the first of his books, and you can actually tell. The style still has to settle down a bit! Maybe he could have done with a bit of polish here and there. But actually I'd slap the editing hands away and tell people to "leave off," don't mess it about, because there's also a candidness about it that's accentuated by the less-than-perfect style. (You could say it was the literary counterpart to the always-moving, jiggly camera work you see on modern tv shows, where the director's trying to make his million-dollar show look like it was shot on a handheld camcorder like Blair Witch ... Hollywood currently believes this effect makes footage look "real" and "immediate" and "exciting." Well, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the damn' gander! In the literary world, editors need to learn when to leave well alone and let the "reality" and "immediacy" of slightly rough writing speak for itself. I'll probably get beat up for saying that...)

Back to the book! Mayor... is a truly marvelous portrait of time and place and people. The book was put out by Saint Martin's Press in 1982, and then fell out of print for eons. It was reprinted just a few months ago (August or September of '08) also by SMP, as a partnership for the upcoming movie. I read a borrowed copy back in the late 1980s, and just got the new edition. I read it again, and was just as impressed this time around. Yet...

The book is a strange mixture (not RS's fault) of the contemporary and the historical. Hard to define. You swing back and forth like a pendulum while reading, when "this" strikes a chord as being contemporary, then "that" strikes another chord as being a historical note, and you realize how much has changed in the world since the era of the book.

30 years later it seems so totally weird that somebody like Dan White, who had once been a policeman, could haul off and shoot a guy for being gay and having the audacity to run for public office. But it happened. It was a real event. Nobody made this up. The first thing that hits you as being "out of the past" is the weirdness of the fact this actually happened. (A few years earlier, Patricia Nell Warren had written of the assassination of a gay athlete in The Front Runner ... which shows you a little bit about what the state of things was like in the USA at the time. Thank heavens things changed.)

The second thing that hits you when you read Mayor... is even more sad. AIDS wasn't an issue in 1978 when Harvey Milk was killed. Mr. Milk would never have even heard the word. He represented the gay and lesbian community for one of the cities that was about to be hit the hardest. He could probably have made an incredible difference in the next thirty years, using his influence to get funding for research and support -- and public AIDS education. A lot of lives could have been saved. And Randy Shilts's life could have been one of them.

Don't let me give you the impression that Mayor... is a sad book, because it's not. It's vigorous and witty, clever and insightful. Does it have a downside? Yes and no. Yes, if you're one of those readers that needs a footnoted citation for every syllable that comes out of someone's mouth. You're not absolutely sure where "fact" blurs into "faction" (can't say fiction ... would have to be a cross between the two, with RS as the stable master). For myself, I'm not that all-fired bothered, because somebody who knew Harvey Milk personally (and did as much research as Randy Shilts did, to bring this book together) would know the truth of things better than anybody else. I'm prepared to take what RS writes on trust.

Great book -- very timely, with the movie coming out and also with the Proposition 8 travesty taking place in the same location. California again! Harvey and Randy are up there somewhere, shaking their heads over us. Highly recommended. AG's rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Here's Randy Shilts's page at Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Shilts

And you cam get great deals on The Mayor of Castro Street at Amazon right now:

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Gay romance and fantasy come alive: The Swordsman

If I had a wishlist, one thing that would definitely be on it is this: "Mel Keegan decides to write a sequel to The Swordsman." Because if there was ever a book that was crying out (screaming pitifully) for a sequel, this is it.

A few times across the years I've asked MK if there are any plans to write the book and I get the same answer. "A definite maybe." I've had thoughts about organizing a letter campaign, or a petition. Or maybe, if 250 red-eyed readers showed up on MK's driveway and made vague threats while waving their arms around ... pitch torches optional.

It's not that the story of The Swordsman ends unfinished or that The End is not satisfying. It ends beautifully. You just want more. There's so much that lies ahead of these guys, and as a reader I want those stories. So write to Mel and complain, people.

The book was put out by DreamCraft in 2002, with one of the best covers that's ever appeared on an MK book. The artwork was repainted for the version that is now printed in the USA, but nothing else was changed ... for which I'm glad. You don't change what's perfect already. (If it ain't broke, don't fix it.)

The story is a romance -- in fact it's two romances in one. On the cover you see Seb and Jack (Jack being the swordsman of the title), but there's a second couple, Janos and Luc ... the gypsy shaman and the captain of the guard. And unlike a number of other gay romances and fantasies, this one has some spice! At least enough to steam up your reading glasses -- though you could give The Swordsman as a gift to a coming-out late teen, without anxiety. In other words, when you get to the love scenes, they're real ones. Gay ones. [evil grin]

Jack Leigh arrives in the Riverlands of Rhondia as a soldier of fortune. He fights for money, which he needs to rescue his imprisoned father. The pickings are rich in Rhondia ... but street fighting (dueling) is illegal, so Jack has to be careful.

Meanwhile, almost a prisoner in the citadel, Michael Sebastien d'Astaghir is in mortal danger. Somebody's trying to kill him, and they come so close to succeeding that his friend, Luc Redmayne, reckons he needs a bodyguard. So, when Luc is privileged to see Jack fighting -- and is amazed by the swordsman's skill -- he recruits Jack as the bodyguard. It's Jack's job to see that no harm comes to Seb ... which means Jack is going to get very close to Seb.

Are you drooling yet?! Don't drool too soon, because MK makes you wait for it. Seb starts out as a gorgeous, haunted, troubled, hurting ... bastard, you'd like to kick his shins. Till you realize what's going on. How he has been, and is being, abused. It takes Jack to get through his armor, and then it all happens at once.

The love story runs side by side with a tale of dark magic, horrifying revenge, and mythical creatures that turn out to be real. It's very hard to say anything about the plot without blowing it. I can tell you, it's intricate, fully developed in the Mel Keegan style ... nothing left begging, everything rich as technicolor.

The landscape of The Swordsman is dark forests, stone castles, deep caverns and the river, the canals. This fantasy world is filled out with a history, even a kind of genealogy. The one thing it doesn't have that I wish it did is a map. (I like fantasy maps. Call me weird.) The action of The Swordsman is Gothic and intense: it's like being inside a place, and you know something is out to get you, but ... what? And I really, seriously can't even hint at what it is without telling you the plot, for which Mel Keegan and DreamCraft will excommunicate me!

Does the book have a downside? Only the fact there isn't a second one! As I said before, let's get up a petition.

Highly recommended, and then some! AG's rating: 5 out of 5 stars.

You can read the first part of the book online as a PDF. I'll link you through right here:
http://www.dream-craft.com/melkeegan/swordsman_samp.pdf

And the book is currently available from Amazon:




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Small town romance ... gay style!

One of the best questions you can ask yourself would have to be this: "As a concerned and helpful adult, when you know a kid is growing up gay, what books would you recommend for him/her to read by the time he or she gets to maybe 14 or 15, and deserves to be treated like an intelligent person who knows where his/her sexual orientaties lies?"

It's not an easy question to answer. You have to choose books that have something positive to say ... but they have to say it in language that's suitable to somebody who's hovering between the PG and MA-15 audience.

If you were a writer, you'd probably find this was one of the hardest of all age brackets to aim for. Write too simply, and kids will chuck the book away for being childish (or even childlike). But step over some line that somebody drew in the sand, and you've written an adult book, not a "young adult" book.

I really don't think Patricia Nell Warren wrote The Fancy Dancer for a teen audience! There's no teeny-weeny stuff in it. No Prom night angst, and gym class jitters, and your basic schoolie plotting that kills teen books stone dead for anybody who's "put the high school campus to their rudder" with no intentions of ever going back there. In fact, Fancy... is about grown men, Real Life ... a gorgeous hunk called Vidal, and a young Catholic Priest, Father Tom ... and, oh yeah, about being gay.

It's been said that PNW wrote this as a "follow-up" to The Front Runner (I reviewed that one a while ago, here: http://ariciasgaybookblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/gay-edutainment-way-out-in-front.html), but I seriously doubt it. Fancy... has nothing whatever to do with the other book. The only two things they have in common are, 1) they have gay central characters, and 2) they were published by the mainstream press at a time when gay books were like hens' teeth. Rare. Some critic somewhere probably figured that for the same writer to write yet another gay book, it'd have to be a follow-up.

In fact, PNW was writing these books at the same time as Mary Renault was doing the Alexander books ... and both these authors were writing gay guys, and writing them well -- with a big BUT dangling off that sentence. Here it is: they were writing gay guys well, but they weren't allowed to write sex scenes that got even mildly spicy, because mainstream readers (publishers, editors, critics...) at the time would have thrown a hissy.

The Fancy Dancer was put out in 1976 by William Morrow, who took a bit of a risk on it because The Front Runner had been very successful. Yet, as a gay book -- well, it's a lovely little piece that's the gay equivalent of a Harlequin romance!

If you have a 14 or 15 y.o. kid who's growing up gay, and you wanted to give him a bunch of books that would help, not hurt or hinder, Fancy... would be in the list.

But the "teen rating" the book gets today is contextual. We rate movies and books for their crude language and nudity and explicit sex. If there ain't none of these goodies, the movie gets a PG. This is where rating gets pathetic. You can have a movie or a book that grapples with the most adult of adult content, but as long as it minds its language and doesn't show much skin, fine. (I can think of quite a few "old movies" that tell stories about rape, mutilation, slavery, terror, revenge, drunkenness, murder, lust, war ... but because they were made in the 1950s or 60s, they're not foul mouthed and full of nudity, so ... PG it is, even though an impressionable 9 y.o. could be scarred for life by the concepts expressed!)

And this is why The Fancy Dancer would be classified as a "gay Harlequin" today! The fact is, the book has a lot more to say about being human, being gay, being a hellraiser ... and a Catholic priest, and working to reconcile your spirituality with your sexuality.

When I read the book (I got the GMP reprint, about 1988 or 1990) I had a few reservations at first. I wasn't that keen to read a book about a priest! I have to tell the truth here: I have no vaguest interest in the church. I honestly don't. So I was amazed by how Patricia Nell Warren actually made a lot of the book interesting, when I'd expected to be skipping over 10-page-chunks. I think it's the way it's written that makes it interesting ... like The Da Vinci Code, sure, it's about the church in a way ... but it's more about the people in, and behind, the church.

The conflicts of interest, the clashes of ego, the arrogance of some, the ambition of others. This is what makes the book tick. Father Tom is a very young priest who's working in a little town in the Rocky Mountains. The location fascinated me at once. He's doing community work, and finds himself trying to drag a gorgeous half-caste Indian (Blackfoot) called Vidal back from the brink of self-destruction. The Native American aspect of the story was the second thing that got me interested. Cottonwood is an interesting town, with well-drawn characters, and Vidal is the most "living" of them all.

Turns out, Patricia Nell Warren is from Montana, so her depiction of the region is spot-on for those who live there, and very evocative for the folks who'd just like to visit. I often wonder if Vidal was based on someone she knew. He's very ... real. And he has even more to teach Father Tom than Tom has to teach him...

Because it turns out, Tom is gay as well as Catholic, and a priest to top it off. (You'd think it was an impossible, suicidal combination, but in fact there's a lot of gay priests. I don't actually understand what would inspire a gay boy to enter the priesthood, but -- hey, it's their lives to live, they know best.)

The story concerns the town, the people ... the priest and the tearaway gay Blackfoot dancer. It's a love story, and a good one. You like this book. You like the characters. For example, Vidal's parents -- his father, who is a cop, with a sharp sense of humor ... and the contrast between these people and Father Tom's parents.

When you finish The Fancy Dancer, it's going to be the characters you remember. And the fact that the book has a lot of good things to say -- about being human, and gay, even Christian, and a priest. And finding ways to be "good" in each one of those categories. No surprise that this book turned out to be a bestseller in hardback before it went into paperback!

Highly recommended, especially for teens. AG's rating: 5 out of 5 stars. Still in print, in something like the tenth edition...

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