The Harvest: A Novel

by Perry Brass, Tom Laine (Editor)

In the future, one Corporation ("the Corp") will rule America. Religion, reduced to greeting card slogans for the "Godthing," will become an arm of public relations. Food, shelter, and health, will be stressed as an old elite class rises again behind a mask of "universal" opportunity. Wealth will be invested in the production of lab-produced (human) "Corporate cadavers," raised on isolated ranches as living sources of organ and tissue transplants. Drugged on numbing "euphorics," vaccos are harvested regularly for a waiting list of patients. One extraordinary vacco, using whatever intelligence has been cloned in him, a valuable "Corp property" known as Hart256043, will escape. At an underground bar specializing in illicit sex and drugs, he meets Edgar successful Corp designer, adopted son of wealthy Joshua Devereaux, member of the Corp Board. But Devereaux has a secret. He was born Chris Turner, a lower-class car thief, hustler, and juvenile delinquent, and he can never shake his roots or a desire to retaste his wild youth. In an atmosphere of tension, violence, and repression, Chris and Hart will bond and discover within each other a compassion and a completeness totally outside "Corp" life. Edgar will reject Joshua's lifestyle, and join with Hart to do anything-including kill-to save the vacco's life. And Hart, one of the most appealing characters to appear in contemporary fiction, will find in Chris Turner the humanity he needs ultimately to survive.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Queer

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Perry Brass has published 23 books, including poetry, novels, short fiction, science fiction, and advice books (How to Survive Your Own Gay Life; The Manly Art of Seduction; The Manly Pursuit of Desire and Love). A member of the New York Gay Liberation Front, he has been involved with lgbtq rights since 1969, shortly after the Stonewall Uprising, co-editing Come Out!, GLF’s groundbreaking newspaper. In 1972, with two friends, he co-founded the Gay Men’s Health Project Clinic, the first clinic specifically for gay men on the East Coast, still thriving as the Callen-Lorde Community Health Service. His sexually frank novels are visionary: they include Albert or the Book of Man, 1995, which prefigured the rise of a White Christian Party that would control America, curbing reproductive, gay, and women’s rights; The Harvest, 1997, about the wholesale use of “harvested” human organs; The Substance of God, a Spiritual Thriller, 2004, about the rise of a powerful religious fundamentalist network of business interests; and Carnal Sacraments, 2007, about a mega-corporation (Amazon?) that would rule the world. His latest book is A Real Life, “Like Mark Twain with Drag Queens,/b>,” a memoir. He can be reached through his website, http://www.perrybrass.com or on Facebook.

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the third Perry Brass Book I have read and loved!

Set some years into the future, laboratory-produced humanoids called vaccos, are created and kept for their body parts. 'The Corporation' controls everyone's lives and Joshua Devereaux controls The Corporation.
He adopts a 15 year old young man,Chris Turner, who was born on the wrong side of town, abused by his father, a hustler of old men, a car thief and finally is incarcerated in 'the hole.'
The mega-wealthy Joshua Devereaux, gives Chris a new home and a new name,Edgar. He also sexually abuses him.

Chris/Edgar now has everything money can buy...except real love and a permanent relationship.Something his adopted-father has forbade him.
Chris crosses paths one night with a man who begs for his help. He will save this man-only to find he is a 'vacco'. Chris?Edgar's indolent lifestyle given to him,suddenly takes on a meaning,and purpose.
He bonds with Hart 256043.
Together, Hart and Chris will do everything possible for their mutual survival,their mutual love.But the cost will be dear.

They have something that no man,no corporation,no Joshua Devereaux will put asunder.
erotic, unbelievable,exciting,

[Think-On-It]

If you'd like to know what I thought of this book, please contact me directly and I'd be happy to discuss it with you.

All the best,

- TB

[Gerhard Kleinhans]

I made it to page 38 and I really don't want to read another word. I wanted to like this, but no, I don't.