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Drop...Dead: The DJ Murders
Half the fun is guessing who the characters are based on! Dropping was no big deal for Joey De Vera. Everyone at Klub Galaxy took "party favors." They were circuit boys and they lived the fast-lane life of sex, drugs, designer jeans, and disco dancing. That is, until the night the DJ dropped--dead--and the trail of clues led Joey across dance floors on both sides of the Pacific Rim to a shocking discovery. Smart, suspenseful, and wickedly funny, Drop ... The DJ Murders is an inside look at gay circuit parties and clubs, set in San Francisco at the height of the dot-com boom and filled with topical references that will leave you wondering, "Hey--is that who I think it is?" From the
"Inspired by Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, I originally wrote Drop ... Dead one episode at a time, which I sent out every other week to an e-mail list. Like Tales of the City, it has a lot of topical references that will have readers trying to guess who the characters and places are based on. In fact, the club where most of the action takes place is a real place-or was. Although I poke fun at the party scene and its denizens, Drop ... Dead also makes some serious points about the craziness of the war on drugs, the lessons of the AIDS epidemic, and why we need harm reduction." Drop ... The DJ Murders offers an unvarnished view of the gay party scene and a multi-cultural, metrosexual, gender-bending cast of characters--including an Asian-American hero, a straight couple, a 1970s activist-turned-circuit boy, a police officer of ambiguous gender, a sinister transsexual, and the hilarious but ominous "pod boys." An excerpt from Drop ... The DJ
It was 3:07 a.m. by Joey's Pop Halo watch and a bank of sweat and stale disco smoke was rolling across the dance floor of Klub Galaxy like skanky fog. Joey tried blinking but he could barely see past the end of his arm. One glance up, though, and he knew exactly where he was. Beneath the spinning lantern, dead center of the dance floor of San Francisco's biggest queer night klub. This was his spot, where he danced every weekend, surrounded by hundreds of glistening male bodies sliding against each other like sausages in a meat factory while the deep house mixes of dj Marcus Barker made the air vibrate in front of his eyes. Or was that because he was rolling? No, because he was hardly rolling at all. Marcus B had just spun out his favorite song--Madonna's "Music" (albeit, a tragically flawed mix by Rumblesnatch)-and he should be flying but he wasn't. Manny and his damn Little Buddhas. They should call them Little Putas, just like him. Then Joey heard the unmistakable opening beats of "Dive in the Pool," a song he detested with every fiber of his being. That's it, he decided, I'm dropping again. Drop ... The DJ Murders is a must read not just for fans of murder mysteries and detective stories, but for anyone who enjoys comedy and satire as well. The book also appeals to anyone interested in queer cultural politics, the social policies of the war on drugs, and the world of today's gay circuit parties and dance clubs.
"Inspired by Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, I originally wrote Drop ... Dead one episode at a time, which I sent out every other week to an e-mail list. Like Tales of the City, it has a lot of topical references that will have readers trying to guess who the characters and places are based on. In fact, the club where most of the action takes place is a real place-or was. Although I poke fun at the party scene and its denizens, Drop ... Dead also makes some serious points about the craziness of the war on drugs, the lessons of the AIDS epidemic, and why we need harm reduction." Drop ... The DJ Murders offers an unvarnished view of the gay party scene and a multi-cultural, metrosexual, gender-bending cast of characters--including an Asian-American hero, a straight couple, a 1970s activist-turned-circuit boy, a police officer of ambiguous gender, a sinister transsexual, and the hilarious but ominous "pod boys." An excerpt from Drop ... The DJ
It was 3:07 a.m. by Joey's Pop Halo watch and a bank of sweat and stale disco smoke was rolling across the dance floor of Klub Galaxy like skanky fog. Joey tried blinking but he could barely see past the end of his arm. One glance up, though, and he knew exactly where he was. Beneath the spinning lantern, dead center of the dance floor of San Francisco's biggest queer night klub. This was his spot, where he danced every weekend, surrounded by hundreds of glistening male bodies sliding against each other like sausages in a meat factory while the deep house mixes of dj Marcus Barker made the air vibrate in front of his eyes. Or was that because he was rolling? No, because he was hardly rolling at all. Marcus B had just spun out his favorite song--Madonna's "Music" (albeit, a tragically flawed mix by Rumblesnatch)-and he should be flying but he wasn't. Manny and his damn Little Buddhas. They should call them Little Putas, just like him. Then Joey heard the unmistakable opening beats of "Dive in the Pool," a song he detested with every fiber of his being. That's it, he decided, I'm dropping again. Drop ... The DJ Murders is a must read not just for fans of murder mysteries and detective stories, but for anyone who enjoys comedy and satire as well. The book also appeals to anyone interested in queer cultural politics, the social policies of the war on drugs, and the world of today's gay circuit parties and dance clubs.
187 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
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July 5, 2008
As a thirty-something gay male, I have not been a part of (or even witness to) the club scene in quite some time, not by default but by choice. Still, I admittedly enjoy those random occasions when my friends and I decide to take a stroll down memory lane to visit a time of yesteryear, either by treating ourselves to a Sunday night at Boston's Avalon, or escorting a younger friend to his first white party in Miami. After reading Tonne Serah's Drop...Dead: The DJ Murders, I was not exactly envious of this vibrant cast of characters who live to dance and "drop." As much as I tried to enjoy the rollercoaster ride of their live-for-today existence, I could not help but feel sorry for them.
Joey De Vera is a middle-aged (read 29-year-old) Filipino circuit boy from San Francisco who never apologizes for his erratic behavior-clubbing, dropping and countless other activities attributable to those immersed in the club scene. A familiar face wherever he goes, Joey wears his status with pride, in spite of the illegal "party favors" that unite his circle of acquaintances. The fact that he is easily recognized becomes a liability, though, when not one but two deejays from Klub Galaxy, where Joey is a mainstay and a bit of a legend, end up dead-at his feet no less, apparently from drug overdoses. When the police begin to question Joey about the deaths, which may or may not have been self-inflicted, he decides to do some investigating on his own.
The events that follow Joey's quest for clues are so ridiculously convoluted, and as much as I am not a fan of footnotes, it would have better served the reader to include a brief description of each new character as he or she is introduced, rather than going off on never-ending tangents and inserting unintelligible dialogue that is seemingly exclusive to the members of Joey's posse only. The murder mystery itself is preliminarily intriguing, while the behavior-and especially the diction-of some of the participants adds a few moments of hilarity, but the course of events is ultimately difficult to follow. The author then goes so far as to include a visit to the Philippines, where Joey conveniently and not-so-coincidentally crosses paths with a few members of the club scene from back home. For good measure, the trans-Pacific adventure also includes a family reunion and new information about his estranged father. Meanwhile, throughout the story, Joey also finds himself falling for fellow club kid, white boy Matthew.
In the style of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, the author originally wrote and individually distributed each chapter of this book to an email list, presumably among the San Francisco area, where the names and places are likely to be familiar to those from region. The author states that although he purposely pokes fun at the party scene, "the story also makes some serious points about the craziness of the war on drugs, the lessons of the AIDS epidemic, and why we need to have harm reduction." Granted, the reader is certainly left with a lasting impression of how absurd and inane the circuit can be, but his message doesn't come across clearly.
Joey De Vera is a middle-aged (read 29-year-old) Filipino circuit boy from San Francisco who never apologizes for his erratic behavior-clubbing, dropping and countless other activities attributable to those immersed in the club scene. A familiar face wherever he goes, Joey wears his status with pride, in spite of the illegal "party favors" that unite his circle of acquaintances. The fact that he is easily recognized becomes a liability, though, when not one but two deejays from Klub Galaxy, where Joey is a mainstay and a bit of a legend, end up dead-at his feet no less, apparently from drug overdoses. When the police begin to question Joey about the deaths, which may or may not have been self-inflicted, he decides to do some investigating on his own.
The events that follow Joey's quest for clues are so ridiculously convoluted, and as much as I am not a fan of footnotes, it would have better served the reader to include a brief description of each new character as he or she is introduced, rather than going off on never-ending tangents and inserting unintelligible dialogue that is seemingly exclusive to the members of Joey's posse only. The murder mystery itself is preliminarily intriguing, while the behavior-and especially the diction-of some of the participants adds a few moments of hilarity, but the course of events is ultimately difficult to follow. The author then goes so far as to include a visit to the Philippines, where Joey conveniently and not-so-coincidentally crosses paths with a few members of the club scene from back home. For good measure, the trans-Pacific adventure also includes a family reunion and new information about his estranged father. Meanwhile, throughout the story, Joey also finds himself falling for fellow club kid, white boy Matthew.
In the style of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, the author originally wrote and individually distributed each chapter of this book to an email list, presumably among the San Francisco area, where the names and places are likely to be familiar to those from region. The author states that although he purposely pokes fun at the party scene, "the story also makes some serious points about the craziness of the war on drugs, the lessons of the AIDS epidemic, and why we need to have harm reduction." Granted, the reader is certainly left with a lasting impression of how absurd and inane the circuit can be, but his message doesn't come across clearly.
Displaying 1 of 1 review