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Surprising Myself
Working at a Boy Scout camp as a counselor, Joel Scherzenlieb meets Corey Cobbett, a gay counselor, and becomes aware of his own sexual feelings
424 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
9 people are currently reading
356 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Bram
30 books124 followersBram grew up in Kempsville, Virginia. After graduating from the College of William and Mary in 1974 (B.A. in English), he moved to New York City four years later. There, he met his lifelong partner, documentary filmmaker Draper Shreeve.
Bram's novel Father of Frankenstein, about film director James Whale, was made into the movie Gods and Monsters starring Ian McKellen and Brendan Fraser. Bill Condon adapted the screenplay and directed. Condon won an Academy Award for his adaptation.
In 2001, Bram was a Guggenheim Fellow. In 2003, he received the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. He currently resides in New York.
Bram's novel Father of Frankenstein, about film director James Whale, was made into the movie Gods and Monsters starring Ian McKellen and Brendan Fraser. Bill Condon adapted the screenplay and directed. Condon won an Academy Award for his adaptation.
In 2001, Bram was a Guggenheim Fellow. In 2003, he received the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. He currently resides in New York.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
March 11, 2013
Read this novel after it was banned from our public library (I lived in the Deep South), and it helped me a lot as a gay boy who was lost and confused. Not so much for the story itself, but for the fact that it came to EXIST at all in our library, at least for about a week. It was my first experience with ready a gay novel, and I will always remember it as being one of the books that help set me at ease with who I am.
May 27, 2013
In the week since I finished reading this, I've been trying to figure out how I feel about it, and I'm coming up a bit short. I didn't dislike reading it, but I can't really think of something I liked about it.
I had a few problems with the book. Bram employs a few time jumps that cut up the story unsatisfactorily. For instance, after a brief semi-courtship, the main character, Joel, throws himself into a relationship with the first boy he likes, tells his family he's gay, and then -- it's three years later and Joel is questioning if he's really in love. For me, it was hard to care, since Bram hardly shows a believable relationship to start with. And then, as things with Joel and his boyfriend hit their lowest point, we get an epilogue that's set a year later and an ambiguous ending.
While all this relationship "drama" is happening, the largest section of the book is about Joel helping his sister, Liza, hide herself and her daughter from the husband she's decided to leave. On the one hand, I admire that there's more to the plot than just relationship woes, but Liza and her husband are tiresome and the plot becomes repetitive as it takes over the book.
So I guess, the more I think about it the less I like it. I will say, I liked this a whole lot more that the only other Bram novel I've read, Hold Tight: A Novel, which frankly is a ridiculous book.
I had a few problems with the book. Bram employs a few time jumps that cut up the story unsatisfactorily. For instance, after a brief semi-courtship, the main character, Joel, throws himself into a relationship with the first boy he likes, tells his family he's gay, and then -- it's three years later and Joel is questioning if he's really in love. For me, it was hard to care, since Bram hardly shows a believable relationship to start with. And then, as things with Joel and his boyfriend hit their lowest point, we get an epilogue that's set a year later and an ambiguous ending.
While all this relationship "drama" is happening, the largest section of the book is about Joel helping his sister, Liza, hide herself and her daughter from the husband she's decided to leave. On the one hand, I admire that there's more to the plot than just relationship woes, but Liza and her husband are tiresome and the plot becomes repetitive as it takes over the book.
So I guess, the more I think about it the less I like it. I will say, I liked this a whole lot more that the only other Bram novel I've read, Hold Tight: A Novel, which frankly is a ridiculous book.
November 2, 2010
This is a worthy book to read. It awakens us to the weaknesses of human beings. There were a number of meaningful lines in this book. I'd highly recommend it. I had the opportunity to meet Christopher Bram at a recent booksigning in the Village for his new book, CIRCUS ANIMALS. He was a delight and a true gentleman. This was Christopher Brams' first book (Surprising Myself)...and I found THE NOTORIOUS DR AUGUST a more well written novel...however...
There were significant lines that will forever remain in my mind after enjoying this book... Better a letter than a silent, convenient forgetting.
Nobody's life is ruined until they're dead.
It's like Oscar Wilde says. We regret only those things we didn't do.
You must be out of your tree. THERE ARE MORE LINES...but I can't give it all away. Smiles!
We clearly all need to wake up periodically. I realized that I often wildly look around (in my own life) and 'at times' we MUST grab for something to prove that one really does control ones life. Surprise Yourself...by reading this real treat!
There were significant lines that will forever remain in my mind after enjoying this book... Better a letter than a silent, convenient forgetting.
Nobody's life is ruined until they're dead.
It's like Oscar Wilde says. We regret only those things we didn't do.
You must be out of your tree. THERE ARE MORE LINES...but I can't give it all away. Smiles!
We clearly all need to wake up periodically. I realized that I often wildly look around (in my own life) and 'at times' we MUST grab for something to prove that one really does control ones life. Surprise Yourself...by reading this real treat!
November 21, 2023
"stranded in a life I still don't understand"
"Love is not so much a sentiment as a situation."
A very unconventional love story that is all the more beautiful for its refusal to cling to clichès about love. Love is an uncertain, amorphous, ever-changing thing that is dependent on so many factors, and most grandiose depictions of love oversimplify what it means to be in love, and they act as unrealistic, misguided portraits of being in love. Surprising Myself was very surprising in its brutal honesty the way it lays bare the sheer ambiguity of love and the evolution of feelings when you are in love. One can never be sure about love and it is a gray area at best.
The story starts off at a tangent and describes the life of a teenager (Joel) in Switzerland arriving at a summer camp in Virginia, unaware that he's about to be dumped there by his elusive father. A decrepit farmhouse in rural Virginia is a rude shock to someone who grew up with dreams of Harvard and mingling among the best. He doesn't know that he is gay until he gets involved with a fellow student (Corey) a year later. Their relationship becomes the central focus of the novel, and what we get is an unusual and moving love (if you can call it that) story. Joel and Corey move to New York where Joel's sudden joblessness leads him into a year of art appreciation and infidelity. There is a parallel track of Joel's sister being married to the wrong man that ultimately consumes and shapes their story. The story defies certainty, and revels in the ambiguity of feelings, ambition, and emotions. There are some dramatic plot points of course, but they are merely the skeleton around which the ephemerality of emotions and relationships are wound.
I know Christopher Bram from his queer World War II novel Hold Tight, and my surprise that he's not widely known grows with every new novel I read. His novels are so well-written, engaging, unabashedly gay (for their time), and they voice incredibly complex feelings vividly. Not to mention the FANTASTIC sex in them. Beautiful eroticism. He should be a queer icon!
This novel has two very memorable sex scenes - and they suffuse sex with the invigorated emotional weather and slightly philosophical confusions of the protagonist in a wonderful way that's beautiful to behold. A very distinguishing aspect of this novel is that the protagonists are sides (who do not engage in anal intercourse), and the fact that it is astonishingly rare speaks to how sadly and deeply rooted heteronormativity is in gay culture (especially American gay culture which is more fixated on penetrative sex than other countries, I wonder why - one other novel where I've read a side relationship was set in Poland - Swimming in the Dark).
"What exactly we are to each other still eludes me. After five years. The romantic conventions don't quite fit us. And yet, if we are sometimes not emotionally enough for each other, a world unto ourselves, it might be said we are never emotionally too much. Friends in the role of lovers? Lovers who've tamed themselves by taking the role of friends? We are too different. I am so unsure of self I long for selflessness, and so your love of self often looks good to me, even with its moments of selfishness. We round each other, complete each other. Maybe we're one of those homemade inventions that is not quite finished, but we are sole witnessed of our inventing. Like it or not, we have made ourselves the chief witnesses of each other's life."
Highly recommend reading the article "A Body in Books: A Memoir in a Reading List" that is the epilogue to this novel (which can also be read as a standalone piece). It braids the author's experiences discovering his homosexuality and his love for books when he was young in an intriguing manner, and yields various book recommendations in the process.
"Love is not so much a sentiment as a situation."
A very unconventional love story that is all the more beautiful for its refusal to cling to clichès about love. Love is an uncertain, amorphous, ever-changing thing that is dependent on so many factors, and most grandiose depictions of love oversimplify what it means to be in love, and they act as unrealistic, misguided portraits of being in love. Surprising Myself was very surprising in its brutal honesty the way it lays bare the sheer ambiguity of love and the evolution of feelings when you are in love. One can never be sure about love and it is a gray area at best.
The story starts off at a tangent and describes the life of a teenager (Joel) in Switzerland arriving at a summer camp in Virginia, unaware that he's about to be dumped there by his elusive father. A decrepit farmhouse in rural Virginia is a rude shock to someone who grew up with dreams of Harvard and mingling among the best. He doesn't know that he is gay until he gets involved with a fellow student (Corey) a year later. Their relationship becomes the central focus of the novel, and what we get is an unusual and moving love (if you can call it that) story. Joel and Corey move to New York where Joel's sudden joblessness leads him into a year of art appreciation and infidelity. There is a parallel track of Joel's sister being married to the wrong man that ultimately consumes and shapes their story. The story defies certainty, and revels in the ambiguity of feelings, ambition, and emotions. There are some dramatic plot points of course, but they are merely the skeleton around which the ephemerality of emotions and relationships are wound.
I know Christopher Bram from his queer World War II novel Hold Tight, and my surprise that he's not widely known grows with every new novel I read. His novels are so well-written, engaging, unabashedly gay (for their time), and they voice incredibly complex feelings vividly. Not to mention the FANTASTIC sex in them. Beautiful eroticism. He should be a queer icon!
This novel has two very memorable sex scenes - and they suffuse sex with the invigorated emotional weather and slightly philosophical confusions of the protagonist in a wonderful way that's beautiful to behold. A very distinguishing aspect of this novel is that the protagonists are sides (who do not engage in anal intercourse), and the fact that it is astonishingly rare speaks to how sadly and deeply rooted heteronormativity is in gay culture (especially American gay culture which is more fixated on penetrative sex than other countries, I wonder why - one other novel where I've read a side relationship was set in Poland - Swimming in the Dark).
"What exactly we are to each other still eludes me. After five years. The romantic conventions don't quite fit us. And yet, if we are sometimes not emotionally enough for each other, a world unto ourselves, it might be said we are never emotionally too much. Friends in the role of lovers? Lovers who've tamed themselves by taking the role of friends? We are too different. I am so unsure of self I long for selflessness, and so your love of self often looks good to me, even with its moments of selfishness. We round each other, complete each other. Maybe we're one of those homemade inventions that is not quite finished, but we are sole witnessed of our inventing. Like it or not, we have made ourselves the chief witnesses of each other's life."
Highly recommend reading the article "A Body in Books: A Memoir in a Reading List" that is the epilogue to this novel (which can also be read as a standalone piece). It braids the author's experiences discovering his homosexuality and his love for books when he was young in an intriguing manner, and yields various book recommendations in the process.
March 10, 2014
This book was a major influence on me as a writer and a person.
April 24, 2009
Summary: After a well-written subtexty intro at boy scout camp, the story digresses into a repetitive and not really engaging five year relationship between two of the boys as adults. There's also quite a bit about the family members of one of the boys. Once you sit through a sequence of his unsympathetic adulterous encounters, the story finally throws a mild curve ball, but the momentum it gains sort of dribbles into a weak ending.
Thoughts: One more unmemorable book about dysfunctional people. Geez. This is one of those books that makes you think, gosh, I'm glad I'm not in a relationship. I don't know if that's better or worse than one that makes you think, gosh, I wish I were in a relationship. Anyway, the ending was, as expected, retardedly inconclusive (unless you really stretch your imagination). I have other books by Bram and I'm torn between avoiding them altogether, saving them for later when I have a better chance of appreciating them, or reading them now in the hopes that he got better after the first novel. Hmm.
Thoughts: One more unmemorable book about dysfunctional people. Geez. This is one of those books that makes you think, gosh, I'm glad I'm not in a relationship. I don't know if that's better or worse than one that makes you think, gosh, I wish I were in a relationship. Anyway, the ending was, as expected, retardedly inconclusive (unless you really stretch your imagination). I have other books by Bram and I'm torn between avoiding them altogether, saving them for later when I have a better chance of appreciating them, or reading them now in the hopes that he got better after the first novel. Hmm.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 7, 2020
This novel turned out to be a challenge in my rereading binge of Bram's novels. He's great at creating narrators and protagonists who aren't entirely likeable, a bold decision.
Joel's teen days at camp, and his budding awareness as gay, make up the first part of the novel. His relationship with Corey is truncated by a time gap. Most of the novel deals with his sister's troubled relationship with her husband, the return of their absent father into their lives, and his mother and grandmother's lives on a Virginia farm.
It's clear that the comparison between a straight marriage and a gay relationship are an important aspect of this family drama. The concept of love and loyalty are debated. But the later scenes of "hide the baby" are a bit overplayed. Still, it's an interesting variation from the usual 'happy ending' stories of the era.
Joel's teen days at camp, and his budding awareness as gay, make up the first part of the novel. His relationship with Corey is truncated by a time gap. Most of the novel deals with his sister's troubled relationship with her husband, the return of their absent father into their lives, and his mother and grandmother's lives on a Virginia farm.
It's clear that the comparison between a straight marriage and a gay relationship are an important aspect of this family drama. The concept of love and loyalty are debated. But the later scenes of "hide the baby" are a bit overplayed. Still, it's an interesting variation from the usual 'happy ending' stories of the era.
May 27, 2013
I'm not sure what to make of this novel. On the one had it is an interesting read on coming out and coming to terms with your sexuality in the 1970s/1980s, but I didn't really get a sense of time at all. It could have been set in today's world and it wouldn't have lost anything.
The book is told from Joel's point of view and the first person point of view is not one of my favourites to read. I'm always wondering what the other characters felt and thought, and we only get Joel's opinions as to what they might be feeling.
It is an interesting read and I enjoyed Joel's growth from scared youth wondering if he was really gay, to his acceptance of himself and others later on. What I didn't like was the time jumps in some certains, such as "Three years later I went back to Switzerland." I wanted to know what happened in the three years in between. The relationship between Joel and Corey felt a bit glossed over, we're told they are in love etc., but only because Joel as the narrator told us so. They are in a relationship, but it's not a romance, as we as readers don't get to see them on their journey as they fall in love, we come back to them in New York when they are already an established couple.
The writing is good, very solid and flows really well, some of it is quite poetic in places but a lot of the characters besdies Joel and Corey fell a bit flat for me, almost as if they were cariactures of themselves. Since we are only relying on Joel's narration, it might be the way he viewed them, so a lot of them don't get much depth.
I was expecting more of a romance between Joel and Corey and we didn't quite get it. I'm not sure I would class it as a romance, more of a gay drama, and a lot of the book focuses on Joel's sister and her boyfriend and, then husband, Bob Kearney. I wanted more about Joel and Corey, I wasn't all that interested in what happened with the rest of Joel's family.
I think my expectations of a romance were what made it that little bit disappointing for me, as it is a good book, but just not the one I was expecting, so a solid four from me.
Review copy from Netgalley.
The book is told from Joel's point of view and the first person point of view is not one of my favourites to read. I'm always wondering what the other characters felt and thought, and we only get Joel's opinions as to what they might be feeling.
It is an interesting read and I enjoyed Joel's growth from scared youth wondering if he was really gay, to his acceptance of himself and others later on. What I didn't like was the time jumps in some certains, such as "Three years later I went back to Switzerland." I wanted to know what happened in the three years in between. The relationship between Joel and Corey felt a bit glossed over, we're told they are in love etc., but only because Joel as the narrator told us so. They are in a relationship, but it's not a romance, as we as readers don't get to see them on their journey as they fall in love, we come back to them in New York when they are already an established couple.
The writing is good, very solid and flows really well, some of it is quite poetic in places but a lot of the characters besdies Joel and Corey fell a bit flat for me, almost as if they were cariactures of themselves. Since we are only relying on Joel's narration, it might be the way he viewed them, so a lot of them don't get much depth.
I was expecting more of a romance between Joel and Corey and we didn't quite get it. I'm not sure I would class it as a romance, more of a gay drama, and a lot of the book focuses on Joel's sister and her boyfriend and, then husband, Bob Kearney. I wanted more about Joel and Corey, I wasn't all that interested in what happened with the rest of Joel's family.
I think my expectations of a romance were what made it that little bit disappointing for me, as it is a good book, but just not the one I was expecting, so a solid four from me.
Review copy from Netgalley.
May 12, 2013
"Surprising Myself" by Christopher Bram is the gay love story between Joel and Corey, told from the perspective of Joel. Forcefully transferred by his CIA father to the US he meets and falls for Corey. Both teenagers in the 1970s they learn to accept themselves for who they are and learn how to be in a relationship. Joel's sister is a great character to help reflect on their issues.
The story is written very warmly, at times quite explicit about the physical side of their relationship with much sensitivity and powers of observation. The story to me was in places almost too good to be true, I would have imagined coming out at that time a little harder than it appears to these characters.
The strength of this novel to me lies in the characterisation of the two boys, whose feelings - as conveyed in both dialogue and narrative - draw you in and make you care for them deeply.
I also love the honesty in which the characters talk to each other, with maturity and willingness to resolve conflict. Bram never plays our heart strings by making us feel sorry for the two, making them victims or playing up drama.
I really enjoyed this story and found myself not wanting it to end, given my to-be-read pile of books this is quite a claim.
At the end there is a personalised list of gay books the author recommends and which I will be checking out.
This is a wonderful read that must have been rather ground breaking when it first was released in the 1980s, something I wish more people would read about to see how issues of identity through sexual orientation can be dealt with.
Not just for gay readers at all.
The story is written very warmly, at times quite explicit about the physical side of their relationship with much sensitivity and powers of observation. The story to me was in places almost too good to be true, I would have imagined coming out at that time a little harder than it appears to these characters.
The strength of this novel to me lies in the characterisation of the two boys, whose feelings - as conveyed in both dialogue and narrative - draw you in and make you care for them deeply.
I also love the honesty in which the characters talk to each other, with maturity and willingness to resolve conflict. Bram never plays our heart strings by making us feel sorry for the two, making them victims or playing up drama.
I really enjoyed this story and found myself not wanting it to end, given my to-be-read pile of books this is quite a claim.
At the end there is a personalised list of gay books the author recommends and which I will be checking out.
This is a wonderful read that must have been rather ground breaking when it first was released in the 1980s, something I wish more people would read about to see how issues of identity through sexual orientation can be dealt with.
Not just for gay readers at all.
August 24, 2025
I bought and read this book over twenty five years ago and to be honest my recollections of it are slight. I did enjoy it but there were aspects I found annoying. I am trying not to let my generally hostile views of Christopher Bram taking endless bows over 'The Father of Frankenstein' having been made into a film (OK so it was a gay Hollywood film but really by 1998 he should have been embarrassed it took so long for one to be made) and the generally mediocre later novels and essays. Although he regards himself as a significant 'gay' writer I wouldn't regard him as a writer of any great talent. He cannot compare to authors I admire greatly like Jonathan Strong, Paul Russell or Patrick Ryan (or many others).
Still the novel sits on my bookshelf and every now and again I think about reading it again. That suggests the novel had something. That is why I give it three stars. If I ever do reread it that rating may go up, or down.
Still the novel sits on my bookshelf and every now and again I think about reading it again. That suggests the novel had something. That is why I give it three stars. If I ever do reread it that rating may go up, or down.
August 21, 2018
Before you simply picked up your ereader and typed "gay" into the search bar, there were those wonderful years where you desperately searched through the fiction section hoping that something was written was written by a gay author. Surprising Myself was one of those rare finds that teenage me was elated to find. I was even more thrilled to read it and realize that it was an amazing book. It follows the life two young men as they move through life. I remember that it was the first gay book I had read that wasn't gloomy and depressing. Bram's characters are well thought out and believable. I recommend this story to anyone.
March 2, 2018
To a little bit to get into the story but when I did I really got invested in the story and characters. Felt like a very really handling of a gay relationship. A few interesting twists with plot that felt natural rather than forced just to make a turn. Much sharper book than Hold Tight.
August 19, 2017
I read this novel eons ago when it cam out in paperback. I had the paperback, but it got so torn and worn that I put it out of its misery. I re-read the book in the kindle format and boy what a wonderful read. The MC is Joel, who when the novel begins is 17 years old. His father, Jake, has dropped him off at a a Boy's Scout camp as a summer counselor. Jake is selfish, narcissistic, and just a plain awful father. Joel has been going to a boarding school in Switzerland and assumes he will be going back to finish up his course work. Jake has other plans, Joel's mother( who is divorced from Jake), sister, and grandmother live on a farm not to far from the camp. Jake takes Joel out of the camp and decides that he'll be staying there instead of going back to boarding school. Joel isn't happy with this development. Also, his father who has a long career at the CIA claims poverty in the case of paying for his son's college education. The novel takes place in the 70's. Joel meets a young man at the camp who he will meet again in Virginia. Corey is his name, and Joel tries to convince himself that he's not gay, attracted to Corey, and that if anything he's bi.Also, Liza ( who is Joel's older sister) is trying to convince herself she's not in love with young man who was a counselor at the camp and now is in the Army. I won't say what else happens, but this is a good read and a novel I always go back to.
June 7, 2022
I am TORN. This book, man. There's some parts you like and don't like in books, right? Well, in this book, I really loved some things and really hated some things, and there wasn't really an inbetween. As in, there were parts where the characterization was so honest and sharp, and the character development went really deep, and it was really well written and I thought, this is a brilliant coming of age character study of a queer youth in queer communities. Absolutely amazing. And then there were parts that read like hot garbage with unneccesary twists and turns that made no sense with the rest and even contradicted some other parts, being both pretentious and kind of stupid at the same time. So my rating is going to be in the middle because I feel like there is a lot of brilliance as well as a lot of shit in this book, and I don't feel right about ignoring either part for the other, because the shit didn't manage to spoil the book entirely, but the brilliance couldn't make up for all the shit either.
Well, I said I was torn, right? This book is both one star and five stars. Good luck with it.
Well, I said I was torn, right? This book is both one star and five stars. Good luck with it.
May 3, 2020
I read this one years ago. It was the first gay novel I ever read, and as a blosssing little gay boy at the time, it turned my world upside down. I would have never known about until I overheard our local librarian bitching about it because it promoted a "sinful lifestyle" and that's when I grabbed it and checked it out before that ignorant bitch pulled it from the shelves. Which she did. I got in just under the wire. I lived in the Deep South, you see.
July 1, 2022
This is one of those novels that I wished I read when it first came out as I would have rated it a 5. And certainly, as a debut novel, it’s quite brilliant. Still, jaded me found it dated, etc. Bram is a great storyteller and his characters do come alive, but frankly I found our narrator a bit irritating which also influenced my score.
July 7, 2023
I loved bits about this book but towards the end I started to feel pretty bored with it. I wonder if I am just the wrong person reading it at the wrong time in life ! The main character Joel felt very Holden Caulfield to me - just a young man trying to find his way and make sense of life and love and the entire world. I liked the sections with Joel’s sister Liza in them the best.
January 31, 2022
I thoroughly enjoyed reading "Father of Frankenstein" and "Hold Tight" but this novel is just a 413 pages of whining. The only thing that surprised me about "Surprising Myself" was that I didn't toss it a quarter of the way into it.
June 6, 2023
I was giving this 3 stars for most of the read. It took me a long time to finish. But towards the end I started noticing a bit of myself in one of the characters and I felt a bit of sadness or maybe melancholy. I wasn't expecting that.
September 20, 2017
The blurb on the front of the book said the book was funny. I never found any funny. It was real and a good read. Funny? No.
January 20, 2025
Another old paperbook I had lying around. Meh.
May 29, 2013
Update! Read the excerpt of Surprising Myself by Christopher Bram:Celebrating The Digital Release Of Christopher Bram's: Surprising Myself
4.5 Stars
Christopher Bram published an Op-Ed in the Advocate about his experience as a gay Boy Scout:
As I was reading Surprising Myself, I had CNN on when I heard that finally, the Boy Scouts of America had voted to ease their ban on their gay youth members but had not removed it from their leaders. This vote places an end to a hundred years’ worth on banned gay boy scouts.
Such a timely announcement when I was reading Surprising Myself, a tale about a seventeen-year-old Joel who manages to convince himself that he can’t be gay if he’s straight . After four years of living with relatives in Switzerland, seventeen-year-old Joel Scherzenlieb finds himself in the United States for the summer, working at a Boy Scout camp. There, he meets nineteen-year-old Corey Cobbett, a fellow counselor who's the only person Joel wants to be friends with. Soon, Joel’s sarcastic, distant CIA father shows up and whisks him away to live with his mother, grandmother, and older sister on a farm in Virginia—he’s not going back to Switzerland after all. As his father pleads poverty and his dreams of going to college vanish, Joel faces his longest year yet. But everything changes when Corey returns to his life, bringing with him the discovery and excitement of reciprocal love.
The tale goes on to narrate the growth of Joel. His passed and failed experiments on gay and straight life, his love for Corey, his indiscretions – all in the effort to find out if he is really gay or not. Although his actions test Corey’s trust in him, it is a necessary experience for Joel, deep down, hates himself. Bram’s comment of how he was gay and yet did not realize it mimics the plight of Joel.
This is a growing-up as well as a coming-out story set in the 1970s, when the United States had barely gotten through their African American panic and were now thrust into a world of homosexuality, the time of homosexual panic. In a way, although this is set in the ‘70s, this book very much reflects the world we live in today. Advocates of the anti-gay movement are panicking as they see their foundations crumble under the cry for change and acceptance in America. Although it is slow to come, more and more States and countries are opening their minds and laws to finally accept that the GLBT community is here to stay so they may as well accept them or face the consequences of denial and self-loathing that they are living with this today, in their lifetime.
First published in 1987, Christopher Bram worked on this novel for seven years, and in this process he produced three drafts that were much longer than this final version. Although this is not an autobiography, it slowly turned to one as in the process of writing and rewriting, he meets his own Corey and what was a comedy of errors became a more meaningful story about love as a situation.
If I have to mention one weakness in Surprising Myself, it would be that of the sub-story that is Liza and her husband Robert Kearney. The author focused on this messed up relationship quite a bit, however, I do see that it parallels Joel’s own unhappiness at his own happiness.
Of all of the written words in this book, below is probably my favorite:
Review based on ARC sent by Netgalley
4.5 Stars
Christopher Bram published an Op-Ed in the Advocate about his experience as a gay Boy Scout:
"Being a Boy Scout saved my life," writes Bram. "I was a bookish, introverted kid, shy and withdrawn, unhappy and easily bullied. I was also gay, although I didn't know it yet. I should've been miserable. But being a scout got me out of myself and into the world."
As I was reading Surprising Myself, I had CNN on when I heard that finally, the Boy Scouts of America had voted to ease their ban on their gay youth members but had not removed it from their leaders. This vote places an end to a hundred years’ worth on banned gay boy scouts.
Such a timely announcement when I was reading Surprising Myself, a tale about a seventeen-year-old Joel who manages to convince himself that he can’t be gay if he’s straight . After four years of living with relatives in Switzerland, seventeen-year-old Joel Scherzenlieb finds himself in the United States for the summer, working at a Boy Scout camp. There, he meets nineteen-year-old Corey Cobbett, a fellow counselor who's the only person Joel wants to be friends with. Soon, Joel’s sarcastic, distant CIA father shows up and whisks him away to live with his mother, grandmother, and older sister on a farm in Virginia—he’s not going back to Switzerland after all. As his father pleads poverty and his dreams of going to college vanish, Joel faces his longest year yet. But everything changes when Corey returns to his life, bringing with him the discovery and excitement of reciprocal love.
The tale goes on to narrate the growth of Joel. His passed and failed experiments on gay and straight life, his love for Corey, his indiscretions – all in the effort to find out if he is really gay or not. Although his actions test Corey’s trust in him, it is a necessary experience for Joel, deep down, hates himself. Bram’s comment of how he was gay and yet did not realize it mimics the plight of Joel.
This is a growing-up as well as a coming-out story set in the 1970s, when the United States had barely gotten through their African American panic and were now thrust into a world of homosexuality, the time of homosexual panic. In a way, although this is set in the ‘70s, this book very much reflects the world we live in today. Advocates of the anti-gay movement are panicking as they see their foundations crumble under the cry for change and acceptance in America. Although it is slow to come, more and more States and countries are opening their minds and laws to finally accept that the GLBT community is here to stay so they may as well accept them or face the consequences of denial and self-loathing that they are living with this today, in their lifetime.
First published in 1987, Christopher Bram worked on this novel for seven years, and in this process he produced three drafts that were much longer than this final version. Although this is not an autobiography, it slowly turned to one as in the process of writing and rewriting, he meets his own Corey and what was a comedy of errors became a more meaningful story about love as a situation.
If I have to mention one weakness in Surprising Myself, it would be that of the sub-story that is Liza and her husband Robert Kearney. The author focused on this messed up relationship quite a bit, however, I do see that it parallels Joel’s own unhappiness at his own happiness.
Of all of the written words in this book, below is probably my favorite:
“ We were a household, a family, only by accident. There was no authority to follow or react against. Corey and I were only an accident, without Corey’s journal or my feelings having enough authority to justify or condemn us. There was no telling what would become of us. But here on the roof, the two of us straining every muscle yet remaining perfectly still, grinning at each other to distract ourselves from the buzzing in our arms, the accident froze a few minutes and felt as permanent as knowledge.”
Review based on ARC sent by Netgalley
August 4, 2023
Real life is different from fiction; real life doesn't have to be plausible. Sometimes the strangest things just happen. Fiction has to be plausible. Bram's first novel suggests either poor plot construction or autobiography with the names changed -- this latter being the most tedious genre in all literature. It already strains credulity to think that protagonist Joel's puppy love for summer-camp buddy Corey would survive three whole years of cohabitation unscathed; Bram manages this by eliding over them. (The real complications in the novel begin in year four.) But such things happen — in real life. Much worse, because wholly improbable, is how Joel's free-spirit sister Liza could have fallen for summer camp stud-thug Bob Kearney for more than fifteen minutes (ten of which would have been, of course, a sexual experience satisfying only from his perspective), but no, they marry, produce a child, and last three years together until Liza, finally feeling suffocated, flees. This occurs at right about the time when Joel stops spending his Friday nights at the opera (Corey is a sweet but philistine Marxist and has no interest in such) and starts bedding half of New York instead, all the while telling Corey how long those Wagner operas are. The middle third of the novel features Bob's attempt to win Liza back -- or better, his poorly repressed desire to do violence to anyone, including Liza, who gets in the way of winning her back. Unsurprisingly, the former summer-camp bully is now in the armed forces. By this point I begin to wonder what the novel is really about (it's about . . . family relationships! -- or so the back cover blurb assures me), and wonder if maybe various members of the Bram family should be suing for defamation of character.
The writing is snappy enough, and the account of how Joel's lizard brain takes over while he sluts around with half of New York City is . . . well, there are indeed people like that, and the grudge-f*** he has with a pickup who was once a teen homophobe from that summer camp was amusing after a fashion. And since this late-1980s novel is set ca. 1975 (something we don't find out until about 250 pages in), we don't have to worry about the absence of condoms.
I kinda ended up feeling sorry for Corey, cardboard construction though he may be. Maybe nice guys just aren't that interesting? Of course, why did Bram have to make him such a nice guy? We never get to know him well enough to understand how he escapes the three-year itch that hits Joel over the head like a ten-gallon jug of poppers. Certainly we're given no idea of how he could hitch his wagon to -- all matters of sexual fidelity aside -- a opera-queen drone whose only real emotion is self-pity. I'll not spoil the (astonishingly lame) ending for you, but theirs is a relationship which, if it isn't doomed, at least ought to be.
There are some (somewhat too self-consciously) literary gambits at work here. There are those just-too-obvious family names: Joel's mom's family are Bolts (non-spoiler warning: the novel's last paragraph is a three-fingers-down-the-throat "gag me!" affair); he and his dad are Scherzenliebs (a surname that doesn't exist in the real world, and despite what one may think of the sound of names like Joel and Jake Scherzenlieb, they're supposed to be Swiss German and not Jewish); and Bob Kearney is an Irish stereotype in all but dipsomania. Liza's marriage collapses at just the time when Joel's relationship with Corey might well have been on the way to collapse too, had he brought home a case of gonorrhea or worse and faithful-as-a-Saint-Bernard Corey been less understanding. But this is not the most auspicious maiden voyage, as novellistic productions go.
2 1/2 stars, curved appropriately. Maybe I should curve upward for the mischievous insight into the workings of Big Apple Marxist groups, but I just don't feel like it.
The writing is snappy enough, and the account of how Joel's lizard brain takes over while he sluts around with half of New York City is . . . well, there are indeed people like that, and the grudge-f*** he has with a pickup who was once a teen homophobe from that summer camp was amusing after a fashion. And since this late-1980s novel is set ca. 1975 (something we don't find out until about 250 pages in), we don't have to worry about the absence of condoms.
I kinda ended up feeling sorry for Corey, cardboard construction though he may be. Maybe nice guys just aren't that interesting? Of course, why did Bram have to make him such a nice guy? We never get to know him well enough to understand how he escapes the three-year itch that hits Joel over the head like a ten-gallon jug of poppers. Certainly we're given no idea of how he could hitch his wagon to -- all matters of sexual fidelity aside -- a opera-queen drone whose only real emotion is self-pity. I'll not spoil the (astonishingly lame) ending for you, but theirs is a relationship which, if it isn't doomed, at least ought to be.
There are some (somewhat too self-consciously) literary gambits at work here. There are those just-too-obvious family names: Joel's mom's family are Bolts (non-spoiler warning: the novel's last paragraph is a three-fingers-down-the-throat "gag me!" affair); he and his dad are Scherzenliebs (a surname that doesn't exist in the real world, and despite what one may think of the sound of names like Joel and Jake Scherzenlieb, they're supposed to be Swiss German and not Jewish); and Bob Kearney is an Irish stereotype in all but dipsomania. Liza's marriage collapses at just the time when Joel's relationship with Corey might well have been on the way to collapse too, had he brought home a case of gonorrhea or worse and faithful-as-a-Saint-Bernard Corey been less understanding. But this is not the most auspicious maiden voyage, as novellistic productions go.
2 1/2 stars, curved appropriately. Maybe I should curve upward for the mischievous insight into the workings of Big Apple Marxist groups, but I just don't feel like it.
July 28, 2007
Arghl! So, after heaving my heart torn apart in Hold Tight, I skimmed the ending of this, Bram's first novel, and while it looked scarily break-up-y, nobody seemed dead. Loving on the first chapters like on all Bram's writing, I was sorry to see first a one year jump and then a three year one (just when it got interesting; but that's gay lit, and actually good writing about sex).
The whole big long middle is het Kearney's raging after his escaped wife though, and I'm still hoping Bram is just using text very well to make a point with the whole rather than any individial povs or scenes. I do think that Kearney in the end won't be as right as he might come across in the face of Joel's unrealiable narratorness (which, already exposed, no longer is unreliable) or Joel's father's wrongs.
And I still hope there'll be flashbacks, as much as I hate them usually, to clear up what happened in the "happy" years of Joel/Corey. And that there'll be good sex between them and hope, please, not just a flashforward and pain, mibble.
The bulk if it also makes me think that Chris Kenry must have read and liked it, cp. Casanova (incl. Switzerland/Netherlands).
I chose this book (and Hold Tight) partly for what I gleaned from scant summaries and reviews as the two most monogamous, happy books of his (hah) as for the title, and together with Will Eaves' Nothing to Be Afraid Of, they are my favourite titles ever (she says, thinking it unwise coz likely to want to use it for own fic). Now that the frankly stinking ex-library book is nearly finished, I already go into withdrawal, not having any more books of Bram available anywhere *craves*
As the book drives towards its conclusion, I find myself speeding faster than their car through the pages, impatient yet CRAVING their conversation to be longer, even if it might seem overlong to others. I wanted more explanations, more talking, even if the characters talked quite a lot, but there seem frighteningly few pages left to hear about things only hinted at AND have the "I don't love him" undone *sad sap*
ETA:
Everyone seems to feel it, how there's no aim or purpose in this world, except for those thriving on speculation and exploitation.
Despite lack of any evidence, I think some (non-nasty non-mainstraim-romance writers) still wished that if you loved someone, the delight in their existence would make your existence worthwhile.
The whole big long middle is het Kearney's raging after his escaped wife though, and I'm still hoping Bram is just using text very well to make a point with the whole rather than any individial povs or scenes. I do think that Kearney in the end won't be as right as he might come across in the face of Joel's unrealiable narratorness (which, already exposed, no longer is unreliable) or Joel's father's wrongs.
And I still hope there'll be flashbacks, as much as I hate them usually, to clear up what happened in the "happy" years of Joel/Corey. And that there'll be good sex between them and hope, please, not just a flashforward and pain, mibble.
The bulk if it also makes me think that Chris Kenry must have read and liked it, cp. Casanova (incl. Switzerland/Netherlands).
I chose this book (and Hold Tight) partly for what I gleaned from scant summaries and reviews as the two most monogamous, happy books of his (hah) as for the title, and together with Will Eaves' Nothing to Be Afraid Of, they are my favourite titles ever (she says, thinking it unwise coz likely to want to use it for own fic). Now that the frankly stinking ex-library book is nearly finished, I already go into withdrawal, not having any more books of Bram available anywhere *craves*
As the book drives towards its conclusion, I find myself speeding faster than their car through the pages, impatient yet CRAVING their conversation to be longer, even if it might seem overlong to others. I wanted more explanations, more talking, even if the characters talked quite a lot, but there seem frighteningly few pages left to hear about things only hinted at AND have the "I don't love him" undone *sad sap*
ETA:
Everyone seems to feel it, how there's no aim or purpose in this world, except for those thriving on speculation and exploitation.
Despite lack of any evidence, I think some (non-nasty non-mainstraim-romance writers) still wished that if you loved someone, the delight in their existence would make your existence worthwhile.
February 15, 2015
An interesting exploration of identity and desire. A much better effort than most in this genre. I actually enjoyed reading it.
Want to read
July 11, 2016Yhyugyygv
May 15, 2022
Read this many years ago. A frank look at gay life, a couples struggles to communicate, warts and all.
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