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Jackal in the Dark
Set in Los Angeles as the 1970s draw to a close, Jackal in the Dark is the story of a nineteen-year-old student whose life revolves around discos and parties, beach and campus, drugs and casual, virtually meaningless sex. But a chance encounter with the handsome but distant Rex causes the nihilistic hero to find himself yearning for love and possession. Meanwhile, into his chaotic life comes Taylor, a young hustler abused and brutalized by his pimp. Yet in this relationship it is he who cannot reciprocate and an emotional matrix is established in which lover and love object rarely coincide and obsession and rejection are component parts. Love and the inability to love. Jackal in the Dark is a specifically gay account of a situation that each of us, whatever our sexual orientation, has to confront at some time in life.
104 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
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July 28, 2018
David Patrick Beavers is a writer I don't know much about beyond the standard bio (born in California in 1959 and so on). Jackal in the Dark was his debut novel, and he went on to do at least six others, one of which is a sequel to Jackal. (I was never able to get a copy of that one in the 1990s; you can get it now, but with the shipping and exchange rate it'd come out at about forty bucks, and ... well, another time.)
Jackal in the Dark came out in '94, and you knew from the first few pages, this writer was on his way to great things. Or should have been. I wish I could tell you more about this gifted novelist, but his in-print career seems to have hit the rocky shoals at the same at as Mel Keegan's -- and probably for the same reason. (Josh Lanyon was another casualty). What happened? Well, it's a long sad story!
(GMP was bought out by Prowler, which was in turn bought out by Millivres; and Millivres decided, around 2000, they had no interest in continuing a paperback list, so authors like Keegan, Lanyon, Chris Hunt and David Patrick Beavers found themselves in limbo. Three of those writers are presently marketing their own work, with varying success (indie book marketing ain't easy). I hope they do fine, because they're way too good to be stuck in this rut. Keegan is online, Lanyon had the staying power to make it; but writers like David Patrick Beavers and Chris Hunt seem to have vanished without trace. *sigh*)
Jackal... is a deceptive book, just as Beavers is a deceptive writer. It's a quick read (only 129 readable pages), just right for a wintry afternoon, or maybe an interstate bus trip. It also has a sort of "neon art" cover which won't get anybody upset on a bus or train. The covers on a lot of gay books would easily get other passengers irate, but this one is okay.
The subject matter is ticklish. It about 1978 or '79, and this 19-year-old boy is running wild. It's all discos, drugs, sex. Retrospectively speaking, it's a wonder he survived, because AIDS was just showing up at the time, though it wasn't called AIDS yet. I recall it being referred to as GRD, which stood for Gay Related Diseases. Talk about passing the buck. Freddie himself was a casualty of this very era...
Jackal is told first person by our 19-y.o. "hero" who;s off the rails, and it can be a "weird read" for sober souls. But it's also funny, sometimes touching, and the characters ring so true, what's really weird is that you feel like you've been there. The book is set in LA, which everybody on earth knows from tv shows. We also know the era from the same shows. If it wasn't Starsky & Hutch, it was SWAT or something. We all watched them.
So, this is the era and the place: the stage is set. Our wild hero careens through a lifestyle that's hazardous, and runs into some characters who show you just how dangerous it could get. Like Taylor, a barely-of-age hustler getting badly beat-up by his pimp. It's only a matter of time before our hero starts to wake up to himself. One day he starts to want love instead of sex ... wants to belong, instead of drifting through an ocean of druggy parties and anonymous encounters.
Well, too bad: you can't always have what you want. Life isn't like that, and Jackal is an up-close, in-focus look at the way it too-usually turns out. Unrequited love, callowness, fear, vulnerability, self-destruction ... death. Jackal sneaks up on you. At the start you think it's going to be a romp, an absolute blast that you'll enjoy with guilt because you know how dangerous all this is. By the end, you'll wish you had a tissue handy.
The writing style is so sparse, it's virtually bald, which is something you're either going to like or not. For me, it worked well. If the book has a downside, it's the baldness of the narrative (some people don't care for it, I know) and also the shortness of the book. It's only about 50,000 words.
The length of the story also makes me say, be careful what you pay for a used copy. The Millivres edition has been out of print for a long, long time, but copies were not long ago changing hands at alibris for $45. (Also, if you don't mind reading on-screen, you can get the ebook version of Jackal, and some time ago it was free.)
Highly recommended. AG's rating: 4 out of 5 stars.
Jackal in the Dark came out in '94, and you knew from the first few pages, this writer was on his way to great things. Or should have been. I wish I could tell you more about this gifted novelist, but his in-print career seems to have hit the rocky shoals at the same at as Mel Keegan's -- and probably for the same reason. (Josh Lanyon was another casualty). What happened? Well, it's a long sad story!
(GMP was bought out by Prowler, which was in turn bought out by Millivres; and Millivres decided, around 2000, they had no interest in continuing a paperback list, so authors like Keegan, Lanyon, Chris Hunt and David Patrick Beavers found themselves in limbo. Three of those writers are presently marketing their own work, with varying success (indie book marketing ain't easy). I hope they do fine, because they're way too good to be stuck in this rut. Keegan is online, Lanyon had the staying power to make it; but writers like David Patrick Beavers and Chris Hunt seem to have vanished without trace. *sigh*)
Jackal... is a deceptive book, just as Beavers is a deceptive writer. It's a quick read (only 129 readable pages), just right for a wintry afternoon, or maybe an interstate bus trip. It also has a sort of "neon art" cover which won't get anybody upset on a bus or train. The covers on a lot of gay books would easily get other passengers irate, but this one is okay.
The subject matter is ticklish. It about 1978 or '79, and this 19-year-old boy is running wild. It's all discos, drugs, sex. Retrospectively speaking, it's a wonder he survived, because AIDS was just showing up at the time, though it wasn't called AIDS yet. I recall it being referred to as GRD, which stood for Gay Related Diseases. Talk about passing the buck. Freddie himself was a casualty of this very era...
Jackal is told first person by our 19-y.o. "hero" who;s off the rails, and it can be a "weird read" for sober souls. But it's also funny, sometimes touching, and the characters ring so true, what's really weird is that you feel like you've been there. The book is set in LA, which everybody on earth knows from tv shows. We also know the era from the same shows. If it wasn't Starsky & Hutch, it was SWAT or something. We all watched them.
So, this is the era and the place: the stage is set. Our wild hero careens through a lifestyle that's hazardous, and runs into some characters who show you just how dangerous it could get. Like Taylor, a barely-of-age hustler getting badly beat-up by his pimp. It's only a matter of time before our hero starts to wake up to himself. One day he starts to want love instead of sex ... wants to belong, instead of drifting through an ocean of druggy parties and anonymous encounters.
Well, too bad: you can't always have what you want. Life isn't like that, and Jackal is an up-close, in-focus look at the way it too-usually turns out. Unrequited love, callowness, fear, vulnerability, self-destruction ... death. Jackal sneaks up on you. At the start you think it's going to be a romp, an absolute blast that you'll enjoy with guilt because you know how dangerous all this is. By the end, you'll wish you had a tissue handy.
The writing style is so sparse, it's virtually bald, which is something you're either going to like or not. For me, it worked well. If the book has a downside, it's the baldness of the narrative (some people don't care for it, I know) and also the shortness of the book. It's only about 50,000 words.
The length of the story also makes me say, be careful what you pay for a used copy. The Millivres edition has been out of print for a long, long time, but copies were not long ago changing hands at alibris for $45. (Also, if you don't mind reading on-screen, you can get the ebook version of Jackal, and some time ago it was free.)
Highly recommended. AG's rating: 4 out of 5 stars.
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