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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Absolutely stunning. A doomed search for happiness in decadence rendered in sparkling prose rightfully compared to The Great Gatsby. Made all the more haunting in light of the AIDS crisis looming barely five years after publication, that wiped this world off the face of the earth, and gives the story a sepia haze decades later. A true gay classic of the post-WWII era, right up there with City of Night by John Rechy.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism
This face seats five: Or looking for love in all the wrong places. Andrew Holleran's pre-AIDS New York City of the Everard baths, gropings in the greenery of Battery Park,
and endless drug-fuelled summers on Fire Island is as archaic as a fur-lined posing pouch and a copy of Health & Efficiency, but it was made that way, even in 1978. Brief halcyon days that can never come again, even with the advent of PreP since we're all in a post-Grindr era and sex will never be the same. Do I miss it? I'm not quite that old, dear, and the stereotype of flawed gays leading stylish yet tragic lives against the backdrop of a smoke-hazed danceteria has more than run its course. It's beautifully put together though, like one of the Puerto Rican gogo boys in Studio 54. The closing image of Malone drifting out to his fate on a gentle summer tide while back in his room, Sutherland after a quaalude too many slips inexorably over the rim may be archetypal, but it's a long lingering goodbye nonetheless.
and endless drug-fuelled summers on Fire Island is as archaic as a fur-lined posing pouch and a copy of Health & Efficiency, but it was made that way, even in 1978. Brief halcyon days that can never come again, even with the advent of PreP since we're all in a post-Grindr era and sex will never be the same. Do I miss it? I'm not quite that old, dear, and the stereotype of flawed gays leading stylish yet tragic lives against the backdrop of a smoke-hazed danceteria has more than run its course. It's beautifully put together though, like one of the Puerto Rican gogo boys in Studio 54. The closing image of Malone drifting out to his fate on a gentle summer tide while back in his room, Sutherland after a quaalude too many slips inexorably over the rim may be archetypal, but it's a long lingering goodbye nonetheless.
I must admit I can understand why people enjoy this novel and why is it a gay classic but I just did not enjoy it as much as others have. Malone as a character is somewhat likeable but Sutherland on the other hand is somewhat of a dick. Pimping out your best friend for money is kind of a dick move if you ask me... But then again maybe it is just a different time and generational thing and that is why I have the feelings that I do.
That being said the writing style was enjoyable which made is easier to get through. So there's something I enjoyed, alas, it just wasn't enough.
Or maybe I am just missing something, who knows.
That being said the writing style was enjoyable which made is easier to get through. So there's something I enjoyed, alas, it just wasn't enough.
Or maybe I am just missing something, who knows.
This book fascinated me with the storytelling and the characters--and just describing a certain lifestyle that I haven't been exposed to very much. The writing drew me into the scenes--especially around Malone's experience overall and then with Frankie--and created a surreal, dreamy context. The characters were pretty well developed and various. Sometimes the way the lifestyle was narrated, it seemed so excessive in all the ways. But that's just from my limited perspective.
The end was elusive in terms of what we think might have happened to Malone--and surprising (or maybe not because of the heavy drug use) what happened to Sutherland. I just didn't expect that. I'll be reading the new book by this author as well.
“They were bound together by a common love of a certain kind of music, physical beauty, and style—all the things one shouldn’t throw away an ounce of energy pursuing, and sometimes throw away a life pursuing.” pg. 38
“He fell in love with people he did not know how to meet. He began carrying around with him the momentary faces of men seen in restaurants, on street-corners, in the subways, and fed on their imagined loves as a roach feeds on crumbs. He knew from the looks on faces he surprised by looking up, that he too was being stored in other human hearts.” pg. 80
Book: borrowed from Glen Park Branch.
The end was elusive in terms of what we think might have happened to Malone--and surprising (or maybe not because of the heavy drug use) what happened to Sutherland. I just didn't expect that. I'll be reading the new book by this author as well.
“They were bound together by a common love of a certain kind of music, physical beauty, and style—all the things one shouldn’t throw away an ounce of energy pursuing, and sometimes throw away a life pursuing.” pg. 38
“He fell in love with people he did not know how to meet. He began carrying around with him the momentary faces of men seen in restaurants, on street-corners, in the subways, and fed on their imagined loves as a roach feeds on crumbs. He knew from the looks on faces he surprised by looking up, that he too was being stored in other human hearts.” pg. 80
Book: borrowed from Glen Park Branch.
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I appreciate this for its feisty and fleshed-out characters, vivid imagery, distinctive voice, and its ability to capture a time of newfound liberation for the queer community. It has aged well in that it has this Great Gatsby-eque air, memorializing a time of wonton frivolity while also critiquing it. Even if the characters and author didn’t know it, the dark specter of the looming AIDS epidemic looms in the periphery for the modern reader, knowing it will bring the community to its knees. How history after a novel’s publishing can alter or highlight its themes and meaning is an intriguing subject here and that’s where the aging of the novel has done it justice. Here, it unintentionally harkens to Gatsby again as the Great Depression was unknown to Fitzgerald when he published it just as the AIDS crisis was unknown to Andrew Holleran in 1978.
I did enjoy this novel, but what made it stand out was simultaneously a detractor. There is so much sex, partying, and drugs, that it almost fails to accomplish either of the two intentions of its inclusion - memorializing this time and specific moment in queer culture and critiquing the recklessness of it all while showing how one can lose themselves in it. I say almost because it still pulled it off, but the inclusion of so much vulgarity got a bit, “okay I get the point, move on.” That was the point, I believe, to make you feel like the narrator, constantly bombarded by frivolity, but it was overdone. This unfortunately makes the novel lose wider appeal, while also feeling like the author is being overly critical of the party and sex culture of the time, making it lose some nuance in its critique. As a result, this isn’t something I could have my straight friends read and grasp. That is fine, after all, some things are just meant for “us,” but I actually think even a relatively liberal straight person would read this and it could overload them so much it could actually send them down the alt-right pipeline. Which is to say that the novel lost restraint. A better novelist could have pulled off everything in the novel and made even a moderate conservative grasp its meaning.
The other critique I have is the relative lack of plot. It is a character-driven novel. Having recently read My Government Means to Kill Me, which has similar themes, highlighted the lackluster plot for me. Both novels are so similar that I am certain the latter was incluenced by the former, but unfortunately the latter was better executed, especially with regard to plot.
Overall, I enjoyed this, but the overdone components also weighed it down a bit too much for me to love it. I do appreciate it, immensely and found the voices of the circuit queen characters to be absolutely divine.
I did enjoy this novel, but what made it stand out was simultaneously a detractor. There is so much sex, partying, and drugs, that it almost fails to accomplish either of the two intentions of its inclusion - memorializing this time and specific moment in queer culture and critiquing the recklessness of it all while showing how one can lose themselves in it. I say almost because it still pulled it off, but the inclusion of so much vulgarity got a bit, “okay I get the point, move on.” That was the point, I believe, to make you feel like the narrator, constantly bombarded by frivolity, but it was overdone. This unfortunately makes the novel lose wider appeal, while also feeling like the author is being overly critical of the party and sex culture of the time, making it lose some nuance in its critique. As a result, this isn’t something I could have my straight friends read and grasp. That is fine, after all, some things are just meant for “us,” but I actually think even a relatively liberal straight person would read this and it could overload them so much it could actually send them down the alt-right pipeline. Which is to say that the novel lost restraint. A better novelist could have pulled off everything in the novel and made even a moderate conservative grasp its meaning.
The other critique I have is the relative lack of plot. It is a character-driven novel. Having recently read My Government Means to Kill Me, which has similar themes, highlighted the lackluster plot for me. Both novels are so similar that I am certain the latter was incluenced by the former, but unfortunately the latter was better executed, especially with regard to plot.
Overall, I enjoyed this, but the overdone components also weighed it down a bit too much for me to love it. I do appreciate it, immensely and found the voices of the circuit queen characters to be absolutely divine.
DNF @ page 152.
I thought I would love this book, but I just can't force myself to read another page. Devoid of plot and frustrating to read (although some of the character interactions were enjoyable).
I thought I would love this book, but I just can't force myself to read another page. Devoid of plot and frustrating to read (although some of the character interactions were enjoyable).