PAINTING STEPHEN by Jayne DeMarco

Occasionally there's a story that comes along that crosses a line – and this one crosses two. Usually you can pretty easily categorize a work of fiction. Is it m/m? Is is gay? Is it mainstream?

And with PAINTING STEPHEN, which was Jayne DeMarco’s debut, you’d have to answer “yes” to all of those questions. I’ve read a lot of gay books … books written by gay guys, for gay guys, published and promoted by gay guys. They’re not often anything similar to the boy-boy romance that are so popular right now. There’s a certain brand of “nitty-grittyness” about gay books that gets to grips with the realities of being gay and just gets on with the process of living. On the other side of the fence, there’s all that deliciousness of discovery that makes m/m something of a joy! With m/m stories, you get the feeling that “the novelty hasn’t worn off being gay yet” …!

If this doesn’t make any sense to you, then read some of the great gay novels I’ve reviewed on my blog, and then read a rucksack full of m/m, and compare the two. Gay novels are fantastic because they actually feel like a slice of real life. M/m stories are fantastic, because it’s like the shine and glitter hasn’t worn off your Christmas pressies yet. And as a reader you get to love *both* …and ooooh, but you get to wish that there was something, some kind of story, that actually embraced both side of this literary coin!

PAINTING STEPHEN is just about spot on the target. It’s 45,000 words, which is a nice length for me to read. I don’t have a heck of a lot of time any more, and the spare time I do have is usually spent rocking around on a bus. I read on a palmtop device, with earbuds stuffed into both ears to kill the sound of the diesel engine…

And Jayne DeMarco came close to owing me a bus ticket, because I got so absorbed in the piece, I nearly missed my stop. It’s a very involving story, with some magically spicy bits, and some real thrills at the end, too.

In the first chapter you meet the hero, who’s an artist of 40 years old. He’s feeling his age, and his ex has not long before departed the scene, taking with her the bank balance. John’s bi, and he was married for about ten years. Right as the story starts, he’s in a deep blue funk about life … having a rough time, so he’s quite entitled to the funk!

His best friend is his agent, a gorgeous older man called Barry Provine. If anybody else likes old, old movies, you might known an actor called George Sanders. I would swear that the part of Barry was written for George Sanders. He’s lovely! He’s also smart enough to know what John needs. The best medicine would be something to snap him out of the Deep Blue Funk he’s in, and get his artwork away from the “too real” stuff he’s painting, and back onto something “semi-fantasy” and that Barry can actually sell through his galleries. Check.

The magic Barry works comes walking into the story on two beautiful long legs. His name is Stephen. He’s a knockout. He’s about 22. He’s a cross between siren and ingénue. He’s sexy as all get-out. He likes mature guys (thank God!) and he’s going to be John’s new model.

He’s also going to be the force of nature that rips John’s whole world to shreds like a tropical cyclone going through -- and John wouldn’t have it any other way. As the story progresses, you soon learn that Stephen is in big trouble, and by this time John has fallen for him, hook like and sinker. Of course he has to help! And Barry is right there to stand by them when the barrowload hits the fan in a big way.

This book isn’t very long, but it has a kick like a mule. The sexy scenes are delicious as well as being just a bit understated by today’s standards. The writing is expressive and emotional, but there’s nothing really sweet about it. The treatment of the Real World is *so* real, it puts you right there inside the artist’s loft, and in the street while they’ve being stalked by Stephen’s nemesis.

It’s the way the whole thing’s handled that makes PAINTING STEPHEN straddle the line between gay book and m/m … and -- at least for me -- it also crosses over into the mainstream as well. I say thing because the story is so “real,” and so strong, it stands on its own feet anywhere. Stephen could have been Stephanie, and it would work just as well without changing anything major. (I know that a couple of mainly-hetero readers Beta-read the manuscript before it was passed along to the publisher, DreamCraft, and the feedback was unanimous: terrific story.)

So, your bottom line is that this is something for *almost* everyone. It’s out in ebook format, and it’s going to be released in Kindle very soon. The price is between $3.99 and $5.99, depending on when and where you get it. Highly recommended, and I’m looking forward keenly to JDM’s next one. I also loved UMBRIEL, which was a co-work with Mel Keegan, and DreamCraft says JDM’s next one is an SF story. Great -- I have a passion for gay sci-fi. Aricia’s verdict: five stars and big fun.

Length: 45,000 words,
Format: ebook (PDF; Kindle due at this time)
Genre: m/m romance with a thriller's sting in the tail
Cover by Jade
ISBN: 978-0-9807092-3-0
Publisher: DreamCraft

Buy now, for $3.99, right here! (Also available at GLBT Bookshelf, Rainbow eBooks, Kobo, B&N, Smashwords, and soon at Kindle)

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Gay Westerns done right: Cap Iversen's Dakota trilogy

You'd think the idea of the "gay western" was so obvious, this kind of book would be common, there would be plenty of these novels when you fancied a romp with gay cowboys.
Surprisingly, there's just not that many. The genre is usually traced back to a novel I've never read, but would if I ever found a copy -- Song of the Loon, by Richard Amory, published in 1966. It's been described as an "erotic saga," but how hot it would be, you have to wonder, because not only was it published in '66, but it was also so popular, Amory was either invited or allowed to do two sequels.

But the sluice gates did not exactly swing wide open on gay western novels. I've found it hard to track any more down before the 1990s. Then, you can hunt down books by William H. Henderson, Michael Jensen, Ken Shakin and Cap Iversen.

I'm going to look at Cap Iversen today for several good reasons: he writes a very good novel without getting at all "arty;" his books are the absolute archetype of the Western novel with one exception ... the orientation of the heroes; and he wrote a trilogy about a very good character called Dakota Taylor, so if you're in the mood for a gay western, you've got something to sink your teeth into!

The trilogy started off with Arson! and went on with Silver Saddles and Rattler! I have a copy of the first, read a borrowed copy of the second, and was never able to get my hands on a copy of the third. From a writer's POV I guess it's like the Law of Diminishing Returns. The more you do, the less you get -- the more books you produce, the less you sell, and then the publishers decide not to do any more, and what was billed as a "series" at first, turned into a trilogy. That's fair enough. The publishers know their business...

I'd love to show you the Rattler! cover, but I never did track down the book, as I said. I remember enjoying Silver Saddles a lot, but can't actually review it because it's got to be about twelve years since I read it and the details have slipped my mind!

However, I read Arson! again not long ago, and I'd forgotten what a good book it is. It doesn't attempt to be "arty." It is exactly what it is: a Western. Where the guys fancy each other.

The story is your "right down the middle" Western plot, about sheepmen on one side, cattlemen on the other, the little dusty town, the simmering heatwave, land rights, water rights, the gunfighter, the smoking Colt revolvers ... the works.

And Cap Iversen wove in the gay sub-plotline with a very very subtle hand. This book is NOT erotica. There's a lot of so-called "gay cowboy stories" out there, but when you get right down to it, it's just erotica about very young men getting down to business while wearing Stetson hats and chaps (or at least wearing them till some other young dude rips 'em off; which is cool in its own way). If you want a real, genuine Western, you'll look a long way...

CI's characters are the real thing, too. The central character is obviously Dakota Taylor, who's a big, rough, tough gunslinger with a heart of gold, a lot of courage and a fancy for guys. His best bud is Ryder, who answers to the same description. The two have been in bed together for years, though they're not in love -- the bond is "merely" friendship with sensuality as a side order. Then Dakota meets a lad called Bennie Colsen, who's grown up gay on the ranch and has no idea what to do about it. He's done his reading, knows what and who he is, but in that era, what did you do next? Dakota falls for Bennie like the proverbial load of bricks, and Ryder is skeptical, especially when Dakota gets "suckered" into working for the young man, who's running sheep, and up against the cattlemen. The plot thickens with a drought that's killing huge numbers of cattle ... and everybody knows that sheep can survive twenty times better in drought conditions than cattle ever will.

So, Dakota is working for Bennie while Ryder takes the skeptical high ground, and the cattlemen are losing stock; Dakota has fallen in love with his young boss, and ... suddenly the ranch goes up in flames, and it weren't no act of Nature.

Arson! is a very good read. If the book has a downside at all, it's that most readers today would have liked the love scenes to be more frequent, and a lot more steamy. They're "matter of fact" love scenes, along the lines of, "we made love and then made a fresh pot of coffee." Even so, for gay readers (and gay-friendly readers) it's so nice to have a proper Western with the gay orientation. Like a breath of fresh air.

The book was put out by Alyson Books in 1992 and never reprinted. They also did the two follow-ups that make the Dakota trilogy, and you can get good deals from Amazon.

Highly recommended. AG's rating: 4.5 outta 5 stars, gosh durnit.




Here's a good article on the development of the gay Western:
http://www.glbtq.com/literature/western.html


... ...Amazon does have Song of the Loon, as I have just discovered! The much better look at the cover is a scan from the History of Gay Publishing in America. I must see if I can get this.

Diesel Ebooks has a page of gay Westerns, but I have no idea of the quality, not having read any of these! Worth a look, though, if you're in the mood, but I'm certain some (most?) of what's on this list will be of the erotic variety, and when you're looking for an actual novel...!

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Gays at war -- Vietnam, that is

Whenever I reread this novel (or parts of it; you can read a few pages here and there, jump ahead, turn around, or leave it) I still can't believe it was published 27 YEARS ago by a mainstream publisher. It was done in 1981 by Avon, and re-re-re-reprinted. I think I have a 10th edition paperback. You see the cover scan right here.

THE BOY... is diarist's dream. It's told journal-style, in the form of letters to a variety of people. The whole thing revolves around Kurt Strom, a young gay guy from Detroit and parts south-east, who enlisted in the US Army to go to Vietnam as a medic. It would have been a hell of a book, even if Kurt wasn't gay.

But he is, and the book is amazing. It's not just gay, it's very gay. It's explicit, never pulls punches, says it all ... in 1981, in the mainstream press! I don't know how writer Charles Nelson and/or the publishers got away with it. But I'm glad they did.

There's an ultimate novel for every war. Or maybe for the whole "genre" of war. You can name books like THE CRUEL SEA, and RED BADGE OF COURAGE and so on. The "ultimate" novels are not stories about derring do and glory. They're usually about the evils of war. Or at least they tell the story of the people, not the action, and what it costs human beings to do the things that look heroic and glorious in the newspapers.

If we were talking about movies, I'd name GALLIPOLI right here. (It's actually been called a gay movie, but the jury is still out on that score. Watch it yourself, make up your own mind!)

But we're talking books. And there's just not that many books about gays in war. (I'm going to be reviewing and recommending a couple in weeks to come...)

THE BOY... is also close to unique because it's set in the Vietnam War. Everything else I know is set in WWI and II. And here's where it crosses over a line from "good" to "great." Because it not only tells the story of a gay guy in the Army, in the field, under fire ... it also tells the story of real people in the Vietnam war.

It's a fantastic book if you're in the mood for something different. It's also funny and moving at times. You'll learn so much about war in general, and the Vietnam war in particular. And the gay content has such a "real" feeling about it that this could actually be a problem for some readers.

Loads of readers of gay books are women, and their preference is often (but not always) for a sort of soft-edge fiction that's written by a lot of gay writers (male and female). THE BOY... doesn't have this soft-edge romantic approach. It's a slice of life. In fact, it's a slice of life that's still bleeding. Charles Nelson tells a guy's story, from a guy's POV, in a guy's language. The realism is 120%. So, if your favorite gay read is something more like Mike Seabrook or Chris Hunt, you might find THE BOY... too raw.

But even if you find it too raw, read it anyway, because I think of it as an absolute milestone. You may not end up loving it, but you're not likely to ever forget it. And that's another mark of a really great novel. Highly Recommended. AG's rating: 5 out of 5.

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What's in a name?

I think it's interesting that the new vampire movie, TWILIGHT, has the exact same title as the vampire novel, TWILIGHT, that was published three years ago by DreamCraft!

TWILIGHT is going to be a good movie (there's nothing gay in it, that I can see ... it's PG-13, so it'd be difficult to have a gay element in something aimed at a very young audience), but if you want the "gay vampires" spin on this whole genre, it's the book you want -- which has nothing to do with the movie.

Here is where you want to be: http://www.dream-craft.com/melkeegan/twilight_dc.htm

...but also remember that Keegan's TWILIGHT is the sequel to the first book, NOCTURNE, so I guess I should be pointing you at the first one! Here's a link:
http://www.dream-craft.com/melkeegan/nocturne_dc.htm

(Speaking of gay vampires, has anybody seen THE LAIR? I haven't. But I just saw copies for sale at JB Hi-Fi. I'll see if I can rent it.)

Gotta admit, I'm a little bit partial to vampires. Specially gay ones.

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Same story everywhere!

Not a book review or recommendation today, folks, but a gotta-quote line from an interview in The Columbus Dispatch.

Here's the whole interview -- http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/life/stories/2008/12/07/2_KEENAN.ART_ART_12-07-08_E2_BJC44IH.html?sid=101 --

But the quote I wanted to pull today is just this:

Q: How do you react when you read a newspaper story that begins with the words, "The state of gay and lesbian publishing . . ."?
A: [...] I can say that I was slightly disgruntled when the publisher of my first two books mainly confined their advertising to gay publications, as if no straight people could possibly enjoy them.

Now, how many times have I heard the same thing from MK?! Small world, Mel.

And I'm thinking right now ... how many straights read gay stories? Because if you're gay and you're looking for something major to read, it's gonna be straight books 75% of the time, cuz there ain't enough gay stuff to go around ... well, not really good gay stuff. There's loads of gay fic, but if you want "great fiction" instead of erotica, your options are a bit more limited.

This is the whole reason for this blog.

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A gay novel with a cricketing twist: OUT OF BOUNDS by Mike Seabrook

Summer's coming on in this country (Australia) and with the cricket on the tv and a whole cricket season in front of us, I had a hankering to read a gay cricket novel.

You think no such thing exists? Luckily, you'd be wrong if you think that! OUT OF BOUNDS by Mike Seabrook is a nice afternoon read for summer, north or south of the equator.

There's just enough cricket to make it a 'cricket novel' without the book getting so 'crickety' that a footy fan couldn't read it (or an American??). The story is also angsy ... quite rich with the paranoia about getting "found out" being gay. It was written back in the 1990s, and the edition I have is the one you see right here -- the GMP issue, with a much nicer cover (for me) than the other edition (see below).

Some readers are going to have a problem with this book because it features a school teacher of 29, and a kid just turning 18 who's fallen in love with him. Personally, I don't see a problem. At 17 or 18, people are driving cars, getting snockered, getting married, making babies, going to war and using machine guns, committing felonies, getting tried as adults, and being banged up in prisons. So what's so outrageous about a guy turning 18 having a proper love life?

And, assuming you don't believe that people should be forced into celibacy till age 21 ... and/or that it's morally bankrupt for a late-teen to fall for a guy of 29, there's nothing else in OUT OF BOUNDS to grate on your nerves. (If you have a problem with a teen falling for a guy of 30ish ... what about the 14 year olds who drooled over Han Solo? Harrison Ford was 34 when the first movie was filmed in 1976. The wicket gets a bit sticky around here!!)

OUT OF BOUNDS is about the relationship between a kid from a home controlled by religious nutters, and a teacher at his school. Cricket is their common ground at first, and when they fall in mutual lust, they find out they have a whole lot more in common! Then there's trouble with the school, and a blackmailer -- and the kid's parents turn out to be Christian above and beyond the call of intelligence ... complete morons.

The book is very romantic and not at all sexy, so if you're looking for something that's heavy on plot and sort of skirts around the tricky issue of gay sex on paper, this is a good book to start with. (Personally, I could've stood a lot more graphic treatment of the love scenes, but on the other hand the book is very romantic, and author Mike Seabrook definitely wrote what he intended to write. His love scenes are the kind you find in some romance novels where the characters slide into each other's arms, their lips meet, then there's three dots, two blank lines, and the next scene starts. Writer's prerogative, I reckon. For me, he could have jazzed it up more, but, there you go. That's just me.)

If I had any kind of a problem with OUT OF BOUNDS, it's the resolution ... and again, this is totally subjective on my part. The characters basically run away from the problem of getting caught being gay. They go to Paris -- which is fair enough. The French make a heck of a lot more sense on subjects like the Age of Consent, and being gay in general. But then you have this highly intelligent young man who's going to go to Paris to be a 'boy toy.' I don't say it doesn't happen! It does. But ... I have a slight problem with an intelligent young person letting their education go, not building a career, their own life, etc. etc.

(Why? Well, because it comes back to bite you on the ass when you're 35 or 40 ... about the time middle age sets in, your looks are past their use-by date, and maybe you're divorced or widowed, and suddenly you have to go get a job, and you can't, because you're unqualified for anything. Life is like that. It bites, if you don't stop it.)

But you can also accept OUT OF BOUNDS as a kind of fantasy in which the two handsome princes escape to the magical kingdom and live happily ever after. And if you like cricket (I do), there's a lot in this novel for you.

AG's rating: 3.5 stars out of five. Recommended.
Mike Seabrook's page at Library Thing: http://www.librarything.com/author/seabrookmike

Copies of at least one edition are available at alibris:
http://www.alibris.com/booksearch.detail?invid=9392949466&browse=1&qwork=4926633&qsort=&page=1

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Mission Statement

This blog is going to be something I've wanted to do for a long time ...a site about gay books, gay writers, gay stories. My favorite books and writers. Not just the new books which are coming out now (the books that get reviewed everywhere because they're new), but the books that were great 10 and 20 and even 30 years ago --

Because, let's face it, you can go to Amazon or alibris or eBay or somewhere, and search on the titles of these books, and it's a dead certainty you'll be able to get a used copy. You might even be able to get an ebook. A lot of these writers are taking responsibility for their own books these days. They do their reprints at companies like Lulu, or else they do ebooks.

So I'm going to be talking about my favorite gay books from all eras, not just what's coming out now, because you can order a used book off alibris or something just as easily as you can order a new book off Amazon or B&N.

And the fact is, a lot of the really good gay reads came out years and years ago. They shouldn't be forgotten -- but they WILL be if nobody talks about them, because (it's no secret) the publishing industry is lobotomizing itself, it's melting down. The chances of these really great books being reprinted is zip. So, unless they're going to be forgotten, folks like ME have to tell folks like YOU what they are, and where to get them.

(It'd be way too much to dream for that publishers somewhere would be reading this, and might give these great writers, and great books, a reprint. It might happen with ebooks ... gives you something to hope for.)

So I'll be back in my next post ... and I'll get started!

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