From Art

to Smut,

with a Laughin the Middle

three books reviewed by Scott Sherman

entertain me in my convalescence: one literary collection of short sto-

I ast month, after I broke my foot, a friend brought over three books to

ies, one funny compilation of brief essays, and one trashy compendi-
um of no socially redeeming value whatsoever. The perfect prescription for a

long recuperation.

The Music of Your Life
By John Rowell

Simon and Schuster
258 pages, hardcover ‘
ISBN: 0-1432-3695-5

In John Rowell’s lushly written The
Music of Your Life. the author
shares seven short stories about
boys and men either discovering
their sexuality, or learning how to
live with it.

In the first and best story,
the ten-year-old protagonist is a lit-

‘ tle queen in the making — although

he doesn’t know it yet. “You are,”
the omniscient narrator tells him,

* “in fact, America’s biggest little fan
- of The Lawrence Welk Show. You

can’t get enough of him and his
"weekly television variety hour.”
Just in case a» love of

music-variety shows isn’t enough to
clue you in to the boy’s burgeoning
sexuality, here’s his reaction to
another television show, which the
narrator finds the boy watching with

' his father, Ray: “Watching Batman

is a different experience altogether:
no one sings from the American

‘Popular Songbook, no one dances in

chiffon dresses and high heels. But

. Batman has something Lawrence .

Welk could never even begin to sup-
ply: men — handsome, grown-up

-men who live together in the same

house, men who are each other’s
best friends, men who look out-for
each other in all sorts of strange cir-
cumstances. Also: men who wear
tights. Men in tights! So why do the
other boys in your class love the
Batman show, too? They certainly
don’t like Lawrence Welk. But
you’re’ aware that they watch
Batman — you’ve heard them talking
about it in groups on the playground
— and they watch it with their dads,
too. You don’t usually have that
much in common with the other
boys in your class, and. for that
matter, not much in common with
Ray, either. So why Batman?”

This story_is almost per-
fect in scope and tone. That it ends
sadly, with the boy learning a hard
lesson about how much it can hurt
to be a sissy in the 1950s, is painful
to read. But it rings true.

Unfortunately, all of
Rowell’s protagonists seem to have
an awfully hard time of it. You
won’t meet any content, well-adjust-
ed or happily-coupled guys in these
tales. All these men are single and
somewhat depressed.

In “The Mother-Of-the-

’ Groom-and-I,” a man accompanies

his mother on a shopping expedi-
tion. In one of the book’s most
charming exchanges, the narrator
parries with his mother when she
refers to something happening “so
many years ago.”

“It wasn’t that long ago,

‘ Mother. I’m only thirty-three.”

“I know,” she says, buck-
ling up. “As old as Jesus when he

died.”

“Yes,” I say, “as old as
Jesus, but not nearly as accom-
plished.” '

“Well, my heavens,” she
says. “Whois?”

Later, the narrator tries
vainly to catch_the eye of the proba-
bly-straight guy in the mall who just
might have looked at him:

And like a Three Stooge, I
wheel around and knock over the
entire standing rack of cushy belts.

Oh, this is a disaster. Because
what if I’m wrong and what if he
actually was going to come over
to talk to me because he was inter-
ested, what if he was an unmoored
person like myself, looking for
someone to share his life with, to
set up house with, to love forever,
to have to hold till death do us
part?

Rowell has the gift of
making his characters likable, but
it’s difficult to watch people you
like turn desperate and pathetic.

Read The Music of Your

Life if you like beautifully written,

’ well-toldstories that transport you

into their characters’ lives. The
author is especially good at invok-
ing the ambivalence and alienation
of coming into your sexuality, and
the awkwardness of gay youth. But
avoid it if you’re looking for some-
thing to make you feel good about
being gay. Rowell’s book seems
almost nostalgic in its portrayal of
homosexuality as a bittersweet busi-
ness that lacks much possibility for
long-term love. This is Rowell’s
first book — let’s hope the next gives
us a little less bitter and a little more
sweet.

Let Me Kiss It Better, Elixirs
for the Not so straight and
Narrow

By Billeh Nickerson
Arsenal Pulp Press

130 pages; Paperback

ISBN: 1-55152-125-3

To call the essays in Let Me Kiss It
Better slight would be an under-
statement: this collection is to books
what whipped cream is to food:
Frothy, sweet, and not terribly fill-
ing. Still, if you’re looking for a
light read to make you chuckle,
you’ll enjoy this book.

’ Let Me‘ Kiss It Better is
composed of almost fifty very short
essays — each about two, maybe
three pages long. Nickerson is
funny, observing the small details of
everyday life with a sharp and sex-
obsessed mind. In one essay, a
friend’s'admission that he
microwaves the vegetables he uses
as sex toys leads Nickerson to mar-
vel “that he had found a way to‘ '
overcome the perils of cold carrots
reaffirrned my belief that the gay
community had some of the most
creative and resourceful individuals
in the world.”

In another essay,
Nickerson outs the Rice Krispies
Snap, Crackle and Pop characters as
“fudgepackers,” imagining that their
noisy ruckus was «really the sound
of three miniature gay men having
an orgy inside my bowl.”

In my favorite piece,
Nickerson recalls the terror of his

first orgasm, the messy outpouring
of which had him thinking he was
dying. “If only Sesame Street had
prepared me for such a moment,” he
writes, “instead of teaching me how
to say ‘water’ in Spanish, I wouldn’t
have spent the next few days believ-
ing that I was slowly deflating like a
balloon.

If you’re the type who
likes reading fripperies like these —
and you know who you are — check
out Nickerson’s book.

Manhandled, Gripping Tales
of Gay Erotic Fiction

Edited by Austin Foxxe
Warner Books

352 pages; Paperback
ISBN: 0-4466-7999-2

In this beautifully written, moving
collection of short stories, Austin
F oxxe has collected some of the

' finest and most subtle celebrations

of male sexuality ever committed to
paper. Um, no.

Manhandled is a collec-
tion of short stories that originally
appeared in Mandate, Men
Magazine, and on a website called
amateurstraightguys.com. If you
have ever skipped past the pictures
in a dirty magazine to read the sto-
ries, then this book might be for
you. Be aware: all of the stories fea-
ture some sort of dominance, often
brutal and violent. If you like your
loving sweet and romantic, look
elsewhere.

Whether or not you’ll find
these stories hot is up to you. Still,
sexiness is not enhanced by writing
like, “It was sticky-humid, and my
pants felt like they were glued to the
hairy, sweaty crack of my perfect
white ass,” or “The beer pours
down‘ my throat like the jizz of
God,” or “You have no right to use
that name, Corydon slime!” The
erotic is rarely enhanced by the
risible. V

Scott Sherman is a freelance writer
who lives with his partner and son
in Richmond.

 

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