Levi Huxton's Blog, page 2

The Desolate Homestead - Donnie Vakarian

Montana, 1880. A desolate homestead in the Eastern plains. Tom, a young widower, discovers a wounded outlaw hiding on his farm. The corrupt sheriff and his deputies are after Abe, the fugitive, and they don't care much for Tom either.

It's a great set-up for the illicit relationship that sparks between Tom and Abe. The stakes are high: the defense of private property, the survival of good men, and a love that dare not speak its name.

Desolate Homestead is no revisionist Western, attached as it is to the force-justifying founding myths of settler colonialism. The subversion here is in characters daring to imagine for themselves an alternative to traditional marital bliss (even if it involves the performance of heteronormative marital bliss).

A lot of the plot of this erotic period romance is predictable, story beats and sex scenes hitting with the predictability of crutching and shearing seasons. But I suppose there can be comfort in that, if you're so inclined. Overused devices are also beloved tropes (I'm a new reader to romance as a genre).

Harder to dismiss is Tom's plodding and repetitive internal monologue, in which he describes in minute detail what he could do, what he should do, what he might do, what he will do, and then what he is actually doing to keep his lover safe. Writers are often invited to show, not tell, and here we are told (again and again) about every aspects of the logistics of hiding a wounded man from the law.

Like the novel's title, the tone here is passively descriptive, leaving little room for pulse-quickening action or breathless surprise. This includes the sex scenes, which don't always contribute to the character's search for meaning (past the initial intimacy of a sensual bath) and whose repetitive nature (every orgasm results in "shooting thick white ropes of semen") doesn't bode well in the unlikely case of a long term relationship.

Thankfully, the two central characters are compelling enough that you care for their predicament. If these queer men are our ancestors, then their fight is our fight. We root for their future not just as characters threatened by ignorance and hatred, but as the brave men whose shoulders we now stand on. The novel is never more alive than when Tom imagines living his truth in plain sight.

Donnie Vakarian keeps Tom and Abe's backstories ambiguous enough that our imagination remains engaged (it was a relief to this reader when, despite having fallen head over heels, Tom acknowledges that after only a fortnight, he might not know Abe as well as he thinks). There's a good ending that picks up the pace and allows for a couple of curveballs, while setting up the sequels nicely (this is the first in a Montana series).

Farm life in 1880 Montana rings true, and Vakarian infuses his rural tale with authentic language and detail. He writes about dogs, horses and sheep with credible authority, and knows how to describe not just farm work but, say, the sequential smells of a stillborn lamb consumed by fire. Against this deftly painted backdrop of isolated plains, the loneliness of queer men with slim odds of finding one another reverberates in the mind long after the final page.

Straight Boy Roommate - Kev Troughton

This volume of British gay erotica is a minor masterpiece.

Everything at first points to a simple one-handed read: the generic title, the "porn category" concept (college boy moves in with hot straight roommate), the half-naked guys on the cover.

It starts predictably enough. Tom is a virgin, it's his first day at university and he's nervous about who he gets to share a dorm room with. In quick succession, he meets three other boys - the nerd, the emo kid and the straight jock - and by the end of the book (spoiler!), Tom is no longer a virgin.

Straight Boy Roommate, however, is much more than what it advertises.

The first stroke of genius is to condense action that might logically have spanned a term or a year into 48 breathless hours. (More semen gets spilled in this timeframe than seems physiologically possible, but we'll call that magic realism.) This conceit propels the action forward with infectious kinetic energy. No character stays put for very long, and there's no time for doubts or rumination: action precipitates action. That choreography of perpertual movement and insatiable lust is an inspired and accurate portrayal of youth, capturing the restless mind and jittery body of late adolescence, the relentless obsession with accruing sexual experience, the giddy thrill of being suddenly freed from school and family.

This wouldn't work without excellent writing. With an economy of style, Troughton writes short, fluid sentences. Deceptively simple descriptions situate the action (and body parts) with impeccable clarity. The dialogue consistently rings true, alive with an authentic sense of place, class and character - it's also sometimes incredibly funny. The thin plot, an escalation of cover-to-cover sex talk and sex acts, belies a clever narrative construction, in which accelerated character arcs turn archetypes into three-dimensional beings whose acquaintance, by the end, the reader is thrilled to have made.

Without calling attention to what he is doing, Troughton bestows an invaluable gift to the reader - especially if the reader is a gay man - in the character of Dan.

Dan is the big straight rugby player, uncomplicated, maybe even a little dumb, extraverted and always up for a laugh. We all know him. He's the jock of countless movies, novels and real-life experiences. If you're a gay youth and you've not come out, Dan is the portrait of unattainability: the guy whose body you secretly lust after, whose social ease and popularity you envy. He's also the guy, traditionally, who might beat you up.

Troughton rewrites this archetype into a kind giant who just might turn out to be an unlikely ally. If Dan can relate to Tom's queer thirst, it's because he too is led by his dick and he knows resistance is futile. The expansion of his horizons is driven by horniness, not moral or philosophical epiphanies.

And yet by grudgingly giving Tom the permission to be himself - including sexually - Dan lifts a gigantic weight off many gay readers' minds. This generous gift is akin to the liberating monologue delivered by Elio's father in Call Me By Your Name, that explicit permission to desire and to love another man, granted to so few of us growing up.

Straight Boy Roommate will turn you on, big time. If you let it, it might also very well win you over.

Strawberries And Other Erotic Fruit - Jerry L. Wheeler

This wonderful collection reflects gay experience in surprising and entertaining ways. With a strong undercurrent of dark humour, a splash of supernatural and a lot of imagination, Wheeler's short stories are anchored by erotic desires but buoyed by wit and a love of language.

They're also very diverse, which is rare with single-author collections. I was expecting a mixed bag, but the strike rate was high. Even the stories that failed to transport me held my attention. While it's fair to say some owe a debt to great writers such as Poe, Dahl or Rod Serling, the author brings a wealth of personal style, flair and lived experience which make these tales feel original and authentic. In fact I was struck by Wheeler's ability to write in a variety of voices yet retain a unifying style.

There's great joy as a reader in getting into the passenger's seat and being taken for a ride by a confident driver. From the initial erotically charged, supernaturally infused delights of Strawberries and Spider Strands, you know you're in good hands. You can relax and and enjoy the sights. Wheeler's masterful tonal shifts means the journey scales the gears of storytelling seamlessly, accelerating from introspective memoir to hilarious farce, taking a sharp turn into the macabre only to speed down surreal highways.

The sex is explicit but recognisable, which is refreshing. It is used to propel the stories forward, define characters and underscore the themes. And at times, it subverts the cliches of gay fantasies to satisfying effect. Wheeler makes the most of the potential of lust (and its gratification) to clarify characters' frustrations and aspirations, and help them come to terms with their true identities. Some of these erotic scenes are also loaded with powerful insights (The Fireside Bright, Changing Planes). Most are a lot of fun.

Highlights for this reader (aside from the aforementioned) include the incredibly moving Templeton In Love, in which music helps two exes figure out the way forward, and Yuri: a Pride Memoir, a simple but elegant reminder of how easily we can take our rights and freedoms for granted.

These berries were sweet and juicy and I'll be back for more.



View all my reviews
Strawberries and Other Erotic Fruits: Revised Edition