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187 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
“Do you know these lines, Madge? The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude, under the burden of dissatisfaction, the weight, the weight we carry is love…”
“It was only remembering the good times that kept you from taking the knife from the kitchen drawer and, holding it so, tightly in your fist, on the bed, naked to no purpose except that that was how you came into the world and how your best moments in the world had been spent – holding it so, roll onto the blade, slowly, so that it slid like love between your ribs and into that stupidly pumping muscle in your chest that kept you regretting.”
"In twenty years you could say and do a lot you wish you hadn't. In twenty years you could store up a lot of regrets. And then, when it was too late, when there was no one left to say "I'm sorry" to, "I didn't mean it" to, you could stop sleeping for regret, stop eating, talking, working, for regret. You could stop wanting to live. You could want to die for regret.
It was only remembering the good times that kept you from taking the knife from the kitchen drawer and, holding it so, tightly in your fist, on the bed, naked to no purpose except that that was how you came into the world and how your best moments in the world had been spent--holding it so, roll onto the blade, slowly so that it slid like love between your ribs and into that stupidly pumping muscle in your chest that kept you regretting."
"In twenty years you could say and do a lot you wish you hadn't. In twenty years you could store up a lot of regrets. And then, when it was too late, when there was no one left to say "I'm sorry" to, "I didn't mean it" to, you could stop sleeping for regret, stop eating, talking, working, for regret. You could stop wanting to live. You could want to die for regret.
It was only remembering the good times that kept you from taking the knife from the kitchen drawer and, holding it so, tightly in your fist, on the bed, naked to no purpose except that that was how you came into the world and how your best moments in the world had been spent--holding it so, roll onto the blade, slowly so that it slid like love between your ribs and into that stupidly pumping muscle in your chest that kept you regretting."
... no title slipping out of print. Not only did this mean new readers every day were turning my pages to find out whodunit, but that along the way they were getting my message that homosexuals were pretty much like everyone else in the world, living as best they could, with their share of joy and sorrow, success and failure, love and loss. It doesn't sound like a startling message, does it? Yet no other mystery writer had passed it along before me. Gradually times changed. At my back, a line began to form of new writers with gay detectives, male and female.Viewed now, the fact that insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter is gay is what gives this first entry its significance.
Reflecting neon signs, the puddles he stepped through were like paintings drowning in ink.And Brandstetter can occasionally sound Marlowe-esque:
"Twenty-two years." Dave drowned the cubes in the glasses, handed one to his father. "I've learned driving is so dangerous I haven't got the guts to do it sober." He grinned and lifted his glass.Chapters are short, in a 'just the facts, ma'am' way and - with its visual flair - the book reads like a film script. You can almost picture the laconic Paul Newman in his two films as P.I. Lew Harper... only gay.
“Maybe now I regret that. I'm not sure I could have done any differently if I'd tried. But I'm sorry. Because I'm beginning to get the picture. One lifetime's not enough. A man wants another chance. And he's not going to get it. Unless he has children. And grandchildren. They're his second chance.”
“Do you know these lines, Madge? 'The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude, under the burden of dissatisfaction, the weight, the weight we carry is love. . . .'”