This is a personal review, not one shared from www.speakitsname.com. The reason for that will be obvious, in the review.

The books begins in the line of a sweeping American saga - set in Kansas City in the midst of the grip of the great depression. You get the impression that this is going to be a coming of age book, or a surviving the depression book, a family saga book - something along those lines - perhaps Grapes of Wrath with lots of gay sex (after all, everyone is doing that kind of thing).

But no.

It's the story of four men, Wilton and Gaither, Bobby and Dan, and the roundabout ways they get together in the end. It lurches from the engaging beginning where I thought I was getting an American saga into train spotter heaven where it describes trains and their workings for about 20 pages at a time (your page-age may vary, I read on Kindle) and then into the most ludicrous rape and bondage fantasy of 20 or so men (all built like Charles Atlas) in sexual slavery on a corn farm. This corn farm is producing "Grit" (which I had imagined was a title referring to the men that the great dust bowl produces) which is a 1930's viagra for gay men that turns them into desperately needy bottoms bunnies, screaming for someone to shag them.

It was at this point - 80 percent into the book - that a paranormal aspect was introduced - thereby making it ineligible for Speak Its Name, making me laugh at loud in derision and wanting to throw it across the room in disgust. As far as speak its name is concerned, I had wasted my time, and the book itself disgusted me so much I'd wasted my time anyway.

The writing is incredibly uneven. Even the second section which relates to Bobby and his film theatre is choppy. We are introduced (God knows why as we never see him again) with much detail (as with everything) a Paul, who seems to be dating June. However in a page or two we are told that Dan (Bobby's lover) is engaged to June so an editor should have spotted this.

An editor should have spotted a hell of a lot. It is edited, and I won't embarrass the person by naming names but I don't know what they actually did. Perhaps some editors feel that authors who have been writing for decades don't need an editor, or they are too timid to point out to the experienced author that they've made mistakes but in this case they should have spoken up. Or perhaps they just didn't spot the errors. The dangling modifiers, the misused homonyms, the typos and the misused or missing commas. Or the anachronisms such as "gay" and "homophobic."

Sadly there wasn't anything I liked. The sex was porn-standard (and not good porn at all) the characters 2d and only think about sex and nothing - nothing else.(I mean, Dan was hung up in chains in a barn and gang raped and when he gets a nice meal he thinks that maybe sex slavery isn't going to be that bad.(!!!!!!) He doesn't care a twinge that his mother (who he left in the hands of his father, a wife beater) will worry as to whether he's alive or dead. No problem as long as he gets himself shagged regularly eh?

Sorry, can't recommend this one.