As If After Sex: A Novel

by Joseph Torchia

Robert embarks on a passionate love affair with the inscrutable Julian, in a story of the search for identity and meaning amid the gay community of San Francisco

Genres: LGBT, Fiction, Gay Fiction

190 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Joseph Torchia was an American Author and Photographer. In the late 1970s he also worked as a reporter for 'The Palm Beach', 'The San Francisco Chronicle' and 'The San Francisco Examiner'.
Torchia was born in Johnsonburg, Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1964 (Johnsonburg High School). After his studies at the University of Florida (1968) he spent two years in the Peace Corps (1968–1970). After having left journalism, Torchia owned a photography studio during the last 15 years of his life.

Reviews

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Equal parts ethereal and overwritten, Joseph Torchia’s “As If After Sex” is a book that tells the story of Robert and his passionate love for Julian, a San Francisco hustler and drug addict.

Told as a diary entry and internal monologue importantly and entirely inside Robert’s head, the book reveals a man in love with the heterosexual ideals he was raised with to such an extent that he is incapable of seeing just how toxic his relationship with and love for this man is. Robert, caught up in what he perceives as love for Julian, consistently ignores his own interests for this ideal of love he has allowed to dictate his own life.

A book that asks really difficult questions about how we as gay men can balance our sexual liberation with our internal desires for love and stability, this book is an interesting read, if you can dig past the horrifically overwritten prose.

[endrju · Rating 2 out of 5]

I suppose it's a good document of its time, but it didn't work for me as a novel at all. A few good turns of phrase, everything else - abysmal. It starts, ridiculously enough, in a gym, and then switches to a noirish taxi ride, and then the narrative explodes into several threads, the point of which I still can't make out (there's Mexico and a couple of women, there's drugs, there's a vampiric Phaedrus and a not-so-heterosexual couple), and not because it strives for non-linearity, but because there isn't much of an idea to support anything. Also, and most annoyingly, there's a bizarre and rather confused understanding of same-sex desire on the basis of cisgendered difference, where those signifiers read as female mark male same-sex sexual desire. I suspect the reason for this is the author's lack of imagination in envisioning anything beyond what he has been given in immediate experience. The author himself complains several times that gay men have no role models to follow, and instead of making an effort we get something so dusty it's barely legible. I would have read 19th century sexologists if I'd wanted that.

[Macartney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly I really loved this book and was excited to post an impassioned review (it has none on this site) but after today's news I can't bring myself to. If you like late 70s/early 80s gay novels, you should check this out.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very stream of consciousness writing. Had similar vibe to junky, sphinx, luster. Some very drug infused sexual charged scenes and chaos of a man trying to come to terms recalling/telling the relationship tribulations of someone you’re just obsessed with but the futility of that when they are obsessed with something else(sex, drugs,etc). Some nice SF references of neighborhoods and places

[Liam Ostermann]

I read this novel over eight years ago and noted that it was excellent - I loved Torchia's 'Kryptonite Kid' so I am sure my remarks are accurate but, embarrassingly, not a trace of the novel remains in my mind - even the synopsis fails to spark any recollection - I just don't remember reading and such a complete blank leaves me worried. I give it three stars until I can read it again - which means buying it because whatever library copy I read has disappeared - so that may take awhile - there are a lot of books I want to buy!

Although I can't in conscience give this novel a higher rating I'd still go out on a limb and recommend it.

[Mpkjames · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Usually when I looked at Julian I would see everything we might one day become--but suddenly I was seeing everything we'd never be. Suddenly I looked across that tiny apartment at his hollow eyes and shrunken head and saw something I couldn't escape: my own life. Some inscrutable void as monstrous as the need for happiness...." (p. 182)

[William Freeman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tedious wanky dull stupid

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nicely written but begs the question: do the workouts really need to be described so graphically?