Move over Holden Caulfield — there is finally a female character who is not afraid to tell us what it really is like the moment you leave the safety net of your home and your parents’ inquiring eyes. For the May Queen by Kate Evans is a powerful new debut fiction novel that is destined to secure a place in bibliophile mania, equal to that of Catcher in the Rye. I did something I rarely do and that is fell in love with Norma Jean Rogers, the central character after reading the opening lines. By the end of the first chapter, I was hooked, so hooked, I didn’t put the book down until I was finished.

Norma is a young woman who is off to college and on her own for the first time in her life. She is fearless in her pursuit of discovery of self. Her sense of bravado makes human and believable as she teeters along that fine line between girlhood and womanhood, and between throwing away the last inhibitions when one suddenly decides that `I am an adult.’

Within a few hours after her parents leave her with bag and baggage at the dorm, Norma wakes up on the floor with three strangers in her underwear. From there it goes on a wild and fun ride through the growing pains of womanhood, life and friendship.

The first chapter is full of getting to know Norma and her menagerie of friends who are all memorable in their own right. But it doesn’t stop there and we are continually introduced to new characters who breeze in and out of Norma’s and her other friends’ lives.

The novel reads like a fine memoir, is often poignant, often funny, and never dull. Yes, there are sex scenes, drinking, wild parties, and an occasional high, but they are done so tastefully, and so honestly, that even as a parent of teenage girls, I have no qualms about them reading the story because I want them to read what young people face in the real world, and perhaps see that growing up is also about making decisions, right or wrong, good or bad, but they are your decisions and choices to make.

Although the novel is set in the early 1980s, ever decade is a tumultuous era, and even more so, this first decade of this new millennium. I venture to say that throughout history, leaving home has never been more honestly and thought provokingly written about. Taking the steps to achieve adulthood is like riding a roller coaster and. Kate Evans is a writer extraordinaire with an equally amazing storytelling voice. For the May Queen is a must read and a book that you won’t be able to put down.

One of my guilty pleasures is to collect Western pulp fiction paperbacks with homoerotic book covers, along with the campy gay pulp fiction as well. Rarely do the two genres meet; the Westerns never have gay characters, and the early gay pulps often fail in authenticity, with few exceptions.

One author who straddles both genres is Victor J. Banis, whose novel Longhorns will please fans of gay and western fiction. As one of the last products of the sadly defunct Carroll & Graf gay fiction wing, Banis’ latest book gently blends elements of a standard romance, erotica, and traditional Western pulp fiction. It’s like Brokeback Mountain without so much angst.

It’s not surprising, considering that Banis, finally writing under his own name these days, is the author of more than 100 gay pulp erotic books spanning several decades.

In his engaging introduction to Longhorns , scholar and author Michael Bronski recounts his hunt for — and discovery of — one of the most prolific pre-Stonewall authors, who wrote under dozens of noms de plume, and was called “the godfather of modern popular gay fiction” by one editor.

Yet, for all this impressive back story, Banis’ tale of drawn-out desire between Les, a stalwart ranch boss, and Buck, a randy half-Indian cowpoke with a warmth and sexual assuredness, is uncommon in most historic gay fiction (with the exception of the classic Song of the Loon trilogy).

Set in late 19th-century Texas, Longhorns has its share of Western clich�s, most of which are dealt with in a polished style that doesn’t seem clich�. There are the joking ranchhands at the Double H Ranch who grow to tolerate and even enjoy Buck’s sexual prowess, particularly after he proves himself adept at ridin’, ropin’, ranchin’ and a few other skills. A trio of resentful neighboring farmer brothers proves a nasty problem, and a few minor tragedies ensue. But overall, Longhorns is a feel-good kind of book that never pretends to be high literature, but avoids the pitfalls of the lesser works in the genre.

Characters are hewn with depth. Buck’s way of charming himself into the hearts — and pants — of anyone he fancies comes to an abrupt halt with his true desire, the strictly macho Les, who balks at Buck’s blunt advances. That only makes Buck try harder.

Les is more than a cowboy, and despite his initial disdain for Buck’s advances, proves himself smart and forward-thinking (in agriculture, if not sexuality) as the old ways of rural life in America are turning a corner.

Their disagreements, gradual respect and, you guessed it, eventual passion are written in a style that matches the Western fiction I often wished could be so homophilic.

The sex scenes are kept to a minimum when appropriate to plot and character, but the erotic edge pervades throughout. Combined with an astute attention to the details of ranch life, Longhorns makes for good reading over a campfire, or wherever you need some warmth on a cold night.

No one has a better ear and eye for the American city than Richard Price, and in Lush Lifee, his first novel in five years, he leaves the fictional environs of Dempsy, New Jersey, where Clockers, Freedomland, and Samaritan were set, for a few crowded blocks of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. There’s a crime at the heart of the story, but you don’t read Price for plot. Instead, you listen as he peels apart layers of class and history through the way his characters talk to each other: hipster bartenders who tell people they’re really writers, homeboys from housing projects named after the Jewish immigrants who have long left the neighborhood, and cops, cops, cops, circling the streets looking for a collar, disappearing into their cases as their own lives go to ruin.

From Publishers Weekly
Master of the Bronx and Jersey projects, Price (Clockers) turns his unrelenting eye on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in this manic crescendo of a novel that explores the repercussions of a seemingly random shooting. When bartender Ike Marcus is shot to death after barhopping with friends, NYPD Det. Matty Clark and his team first focus on restaurant manager and struggling writer Eric Cash, who claims the group was accosted by would-be muggers, despite eyewitnesses saying otherwise. As Matty grills Eric on the still-hazy details of the shooting, Price steps back and follows the lives of the alleged shooters-teenagers Tristan Acevedo and Little Dap Williams, who live in a nearby housing project-as well as Ike’s grieving father, Billy, who hounds the police even as leads dwindle. As the intersecting narratives hurtle toward a climax that’s both expected and shocking, Price peels back the layers of his characters and the neighborhood until all is laid bare. With its perfect dialogue and attention to the smallest detail, Price’s latest reminds readers why he’s one of the masters of American urban crime fiction.

It’s been 11 years since Junot Díaz’s critically acclaimed story collection, Drown, landed on bookshelves and from page one of his debut novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, any worries of a sophomore jinx disappear. The titular Oscar is a 300-pound-plus “lovesick ghetto nerd” with zero game (except for Dungeons

& Dragons) who cranks out pages of fantasy fiction with the hopes of becoming a Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien. The book is also the story of a multi-generational family curse that courses through the book, leaving troubles and tragedy in its wake. This was the most dynamic, entertaining, and achingly heartfelt novel I’ve read in a long time. My head is still buzzing with the memory of dozens of killer passages that I dog-eared throughout the book. The rope-a-dope narrative is funny, hip, tragic, soulful, and bursting with desire. Make some room for Oscar Wao on your bookshelf–you won’t be disappointed. –Brad Thomas Parsons

From Publishers Weekly
Reviewed by Matthew Sharpe

A reader might at first be surprised by how many chapters of a book entitled The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao are devoted not to its sci fi-and-fantasy-gobbling nerd-hero but to his sister, his mother and his grandfather. However, Junot Diaz’s dark and exuberant first novel makes a compelling case for the multiperspectival view of a life, wherein an individual cannot be known or understood in isolation from the history of his family and his nation.

Oscar being a first-generation Dominican-American, the nation in question is really two nations. And Dominicans in this novel being explicitly of mixed Taíno, African and Spanish descent, the very ideas of nationhood and nationality are thoughtfully, subtly complicated. The various nationalities and generations are subtended by the recurring motif of fukú, the Curse and Doom of the New World, whose midwife and… victim was a historical personage Diaz will only call the Admiral, in deference to the belief that uttering his name brings bad luck (hint: he arrived in the New World in 1492 and his initials are CC). By the prologue’s end, it’s clear that this story of one poor guy’s cursed life will also be the story of how 500 years of historical and familial bad luck shape the destiny of its fat, sad, smart, lovable and short-lived protagonist.

The book’s pervasive sense of doom is offset by a rich and playful prose that embodies its theme of multiple nations, cultures and languages, often shifting in a single sentence from English to Spanish, from Victorian formality to Negropolitan vernacular, from Homeric epithet to dirty bilingual insult. Even the presumed reader shape-shifts in the estimation of its in-your-face narrator, who addresses us variously as folks, you folks, conspiracy-minded-fools, Negro, Nigger and plataneros.

So while Diaz assumes in his reader the same considerable degree of multicultural erudition he himself possesses-offering no gloss on his many un-italicized Spanish words and expressions (thus beautifully dramatizing how linguistic borders, like national ones, are porous), or on his plethora of genre and canonical literary allusions-he does helpfully footnote aspects of Dominican history, especially those concerning the bloody 30-year reign of President Rafael Leónidas Trujillo. The later Oscar chapters lack the linguistic brio of the others, and there are exposition-clogged passages that read like summaries of a longer narrative, but mostly this fierce, funny, tragic book is just what a reader would have hoped for in a novel by Junot Diaz.Matthew Sharpe is the author of the novels Jamestown and The Sleeping Father. He teaches at Wesleyan University.

Here is a short fun read, giving the essentials on the life of Alexander the Great, the famous Macedonian general who conquered the world in ancient times. Alvear and Schecter crack lots of jokes, and in between are careful to tell us all the things that most straight histories leave out, namely, the gay stuff. Books and movies about Alexander might mention his drinking buddy Hephaestion, but they will rarely tell you they were lovers, for instance.

The authors manage to get a fairly major thing wrong, however. They spend a good deal of time explaining the old man - young man love relationships so common in ancient Greece. They even get into the details of the sex (the older man is the top). Then the authors try to shoehorn the Alexander/Hephaestion relationship into this model.

It doesn’t work. Alexander is only a few years younger than Hephaestion, so you don’t have the older generation - younger generation model here. The authors quote the cynic philosophers regarding their love relationship: “Alexander was only defeated once, and that was by Hephaestion’s thighs.” However, the authors do not understand what the cynics are saying.

Sex between men in ancient Greece varied depending on their relative ages. Old men generally topped young men, in anal sex. But if the two were of relatively the same age, as with Alexander and Hephaestion, the men were face to face, with each man in turn inserting himself between his lover’s lubricated thighs.

This makes me wonder what else the authors might have missed or been mistaken in, and I would have been happier if there had been a bibliography or source notes in the back of the book.

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Cary Renfro is an activist and book reviewer.  He is a feature writer for The Capitol Forum in Salem, Oregon.

Hiding in Plain Sight: The Secret Life of Raymond Burr
by New York Post TV writer Michael Starr

The longtime partner of Raymond Burr says he has not seen the new book out on the late actor but is planning on writing his own tome about his life with Burr.

Robert Benevides, 78, told the Bay Area Reporter that he is working with a writer to tell the story of his 33-year relationship with the TV legend.

“[Burr's] relatives have died off, so I’m not concerned about offending them,” Benevides said.

Burr, best known for his role as TV’s Perry Mason, died with Benevides at his side in 1993 in the home the couple shared in Healdsburg, in Sonoma County’s wine country. Burr was once TV’s highest paid actor and through syndication, continues to be one of the most recognizable celebrities in the world.

The new book, Hiding in Plain Sight: The Secret Life of Raymond Burr by New York Post TV writer Michael Starr, details Burr’s life as a closeted gay actor. It also unveils the lies that he and publicists created to help deflect attention from his homosexuality and to paint a more sympathetic image of himself.

The New Gay Teenager (Adolescent Lives)
by Ritch C. Savin-Williams

Boidyke. Stem. Down low. Trannyboy. In this lively and broadly researched book, Cornell University psychologist Savin-Williams reveals that the words gay teenagers use to describe their sexual preferences have changed radically over the past 30 years, and so have their attitudes towards same-sex relationships. In fact, many of them are reluctant to define their sexuality at all. “In some respects,” Savin-Williams explains, “these teenagers might relate better to their pre-labeled, pre-identified grandparents than they do with their gay-liberated parents or their gay-resigned older cousins.” “For them ‘gay’ carries too much baggage,” and apparently they get along just fine without it. Much of the volume is devoted to Savin-Williams’s detailed critique of the psychological models currently used to study gay adolescence, which were developed in the 1970s and have barely changed since. These old models, Savin-Williams argues, don’t reflect the diversity of the current gay adolescent experience and should be replaced with a “differential developmental trajectories perspective.” His book is an excellent resource for professional psychologists with gay patients, but it also contains enough invigorating, real-world case studies to interest general readers.

“That there has been a sea change in attitudes about sexual minorities in the past few generations is not news. What is remarkable, however, is the growing nonchalance of contemporary adolescents about their own sexuality. Savin-Williams, a pioneer in the study of sexual minority youth and the author of several groundbreaking books, admits that ‘gay’ may be a misnomer for the teens he interviewed. Many reject labels altogether and prefer to see themselves as free agents. Savin-Williams, likewise, rejects the developmental-stage ideas of sexual identity that have dominated psychological theory for over 30 years. Most important, by carefully listening to the experiences of the teenagers, he confirms what many other observers have noted: the generation coming of age now has increasingly open ideas about sexuality that will likely create huge cultural shifts in the coming decades.”
–David S. Azzolina (Library Journal )

“In this lively and broadly researched book, Cornell University psychologist Savin-Williams reveals that the words gay teenagers use to describe their sexual preferences have changed radically over the past 30 years, and so have their attitudes towards same-sex relationships. In fact, many of them are reluctant to define their sexuality at all…Much of the volume is devoted to Savin-Williams’s detailed critique of the psychological models currently used to study gay adolescence, which were developed in the 1970s and have barely changed since. These old models, Savin-Williams argues, don’t reflect the diversity of the current gay adolescent experience…His book is an excellent resource for professional psychologists with gay patients, but it also contains enough invigorating, real-world case studies to interest general readers.” - Publishers Weekly

David Kaufman has now written the long-awaited, definitive biography of Doris Day. By telling Day’s incredible, previously untold story, Kaufman takes the reader to the epicenter of American popular culture- a roller-coaster saga, from the 1940s to the 1980s. While Day symbolized virtuous America to the rest of the world-especially in her heyday, the 1950s and early 1960s-both she and that era are still perceived as being far more innocent and carefree than they really were. Indeed, what makes Day’s story so richly fascinating is the fact that she was in many ways the opposite of her image as “the girl next door.” She was also a real-life Cinderella who regretted having gone to the ball and who found a series of princes who proved far less than charming.

Thanks to Kaufman’s dogged diligence in tracking down countless colleagues and intimates, he gives us:

Scintillating tales of fame, beauty, money, tragedy, sexual ambiguity, and sexual conquests.

Anecdotes about a vast array of major subsidiary players in Day’s life, including Ronald Reagan, Frank Sinatra, Alfred Hitchcock, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Charles Manson, Mickey Mantle, Candice Bergen, and Rock Hudson.

Kaufman reveals Day’s demons while emphasizing the extraordinary credit she deserves as an artist. In the tradition of great biographies, Kaufman’s detailed work not only reveals the surprising story of one of America’s most beloved icons, but also compels us to rush back and see her best films-including The Man Who Knew Too Much, Pillow Talk, Love Me or Leave Me-and to listen to her unforgettable songs-”Sentimental Journey,” “Secret Love,” “Que Sera, Sera.” Though she made more than 550 recordings and starred in 39 movies-not to mention her own TV show for five years-the epic story of Doris Day’s life has never been told . . . until now.

“Aside from her as-told-to autobiography with A.E. Hotchner in 1975, this is the first full-length biography devoted to Doris Mary Anne von Kappelhoff, who was rechristened Doris Day just before she began fronting for the Les Brown Band in 1940. Although Day was continually portrayed in magazines and onscreen as a contented wife and mother, Kaufman (Ridiculous!: The Theatrical Life and Times of Charles Ludlam)-who spent eight years interviewing more than 150 people to create this definitive biography-uncovers a tireless workaholic (from 1947 to 1968, she made 39 films and recorded more than 600 songs) with four failed marriages and a son (music producer Terry Melcher) who was “more of a brother or father-figure than a son to his mother.” Kaufman also uncovers that she was born in 1922, making her two years older than reference works state. Mismanaged by her third husband (their 16-year marriage was “a business arrangement” by their fifth anniversary), her career (and legacy) was severely damaged by the last seven films she made over a three-year period. This is an eye-opening, fair-minded bio of a woman who brought a lot of joy to fans but has found very little herself.” - Publishers Weekly

“Although Doris Day is still the number one box office star of all time, history has not taken her accomplishments very seriously, and little is known about her life after retirement-until now. Kaufman’s definitive biography is highly recommended…. Delivering on his subtitle’s ‘untold story’ phrasing, (Kaufman) uncovers juicy details of Day’s nervous breakdown; her relationships, which belied her girl-next-door image; her reclusive life after retirement; and her little-known fourth marriage. Kaufman had unparalleled access to Day’s friends and family, especially her son, Terry Melcher, who also discusses his relationship with Candice Bergen.” - Library Journal, May 27, 2008

“There’s not been a truly great biography of Doris Day, but that may change come 2008. That’s the pub date for David Kaufman’s book on Day, a work he promises will give Day her due as an actress and reveal what went on behind the shiny blond façade.” -Liz Smith, New York Post

Storyteller
by Amy Thomson, ACE

Humans have colonized the largely water-covered planet of Thalassa, settling on the many islands which dot its oceans. For centuries, news has traveled and history has been taught by storytellers, itinerants who sail the seas on harsels, which resemble intelligent telepathic whales.

One storyteller, who calls herself Teller, takes a young boy named Samad under her wing. She is very old, and Samad will be her final apprentice. As Samad grows up and travels with Teller, he learns about the world on which he lives and about the harsels which transport them.

A great deal of the conflict in the book deals with Samad’s career goals. Samad wants to pilot starships, but Teller wants him to continue in her career. When Samad begins to investigate starship pilots who have retired, he finds that very few still live and most of those are addicted to intoxicants in an attempt to forget the thrill of piloting between the stars.

Everyone has secrets, and the charm of the story is learning (and suspecting) gradually what the secrets are that Teller, Samad, and their harsel carry. There are major and minor gay characters in this novel. The harsels, being an important part of the book, are very well realized. Thomson does a good job of concentrating on the relationships between the characters and their development. I enjoyed it highly.

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Cary Renfro is an author and book reviewer.  He is a feature writer for The Capitol Forum in Salem, Oregon.

Wen Spencer has always given us great science fiction: compelling characters, interesting backgrounds, compelling stories. In the four books of her Ukiah, Oregon series - spanning just four months in the character’s life - she showed us a band of heros pitted against an evil alien empire bent on taking over Earth and wiping out all life as we know it, right under our noses today, unnoticed by the general population. Among her heros are gays, lesbians, Native Americans, and some pretty mean biker dudes - all pretty rare in the field of science fiction literature. (Alien Taste, Tainted Trail, and Bitter Waters, reviewed in Lifeline Alternative Newsmagazine, January 2004; and Dog Warrior, not reviewed.)

Now Spencer gives us a completely new science fiction universe, just as fascinating. It reads like a medieval fantasy because of the feudal political and social structure, but is actually set on a far future earth where a biological disaster has befallen the human race: there are far fewer men born every generation than women. Partly it is because, through this disaster, there are far fewer sperm carrying Y chromosomes than X chromosomes in each man, and partly because most of the male children who are conceived suffer massive birth defects that lead to death, or are stillborn, or miscarry.

So, women rule and run everything and men are property. When a man marries into a family, he is bought by the family into which he marries, and he becomes the husband of all the sisters in that family in his generation. The Eldest mother rules the family, and the Eldest sister controls her siblings.

Jerin Whistler is the oldest boy in the house, and about to become of marriageable age. He is worried that his sisters will sell him in marriage to the girls next door, as dirty and backcountry a group as one could imagine anyone to be. That changes when, out in the fields one day, he sees a woman attacked and left in a creek for dead. He comes to her rescue, and brings her home to tend to her wounds, only to discover she is one of the royal princesses. He falls in love, but becomes dismayed at the huge difference in rank. The royal family can easily afford to buy him in marriage, but only choose their husbands from among the nobility.

However, when Princess Ren hears of the closely held Whistler family secret, she sees a way to persuade her mother to allow the marriage. But mother will only agree if all Ren’s sisters agree, and one sister, out investigating a long-simmering rebellion, has been missing for months.

Jerin and his sisters, unaware of the royal interest in him, are offered a reward for rescuing the princess: the royal family will sponsor his coming out in the capital. This will allow Jerin to be seen and bid on by the best families, and will also allow his sisters to look for a husband of their own. But coming to the capital plunges Jerin and his family into the middle of the political tensions which quickly escalate into civil war.

Spencer gives us a world which I hope she will return to often, as the story is open ended enough to allow for more in the series.

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Cary Renfro is an author and book reviewer.  He is a feature writer for The Capitol Forum in Salem, Oregon.