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A review by zoes_human
Men on Men: Best New Gay Fiction by John Fox, Ethan Mordden, Sam D'Allesandro, Andrew Holleran, Patrick Hoctel, Kevin Killian, C.F. Borgman, Edmund White, Wallace Parr, Richard Umans, Robert Glück, Felice Picano, Richard Walter Hall, George Stambolian, Bruce Boone, Michael Grumley, Brad Gooch, Dennis Cooper, Robert Ferro
Did not finish book. Stopped at 68%.
This book is not horrible. I absolutely loved Richard Hall's "Backwards". It's an incredible enough short story that I'm keeping this book simply to have that story. I also thought that Andrew Holleran's "Friends at Evening", a story of three men on their way to the funeral of another, captures something crucial of 1980s AIDs crisis.
One problem with this collection is that five of the eighteen stories are excerpts from novels rather than actual pieces of short fiction. As far as I, a lover of short work, am concerned that means it only has thirteen stories. Thirteen stories is a perfectly acceptable number of pieces for an anthology, but it's a bit disappointing when one expects eighteen.
The second problem is that many of these stories feel incomplete. No sense of closure or completeness of arc exists in them. It is perhaps no small coincidence that an editor who feels that excerpts have a place in an anthology isn't troubled by shorts that fail to be a total story.
I suppose I could push through the final five stories in this book, but I'm too old to spend time with books or people who don't inspire my mind.
One problem with this collection is that five of the eighteen stories are excerpts from novels rather than actual pieces of short fiction. As far as I, a lover of short work, am concerned that means it only has thirteen stories. Thirteen stories is a perfectly acceptable number of pieces for an anthology, but it's a bit disappointing when one expects eighteen.
The second problem is that many of these stories feel incomplete. No sense of closure or completeness of arc exists in them. It is perhaps no small coincidence that an editor who feels that excerpts have a place in an anthology isn't troubled by shorts that fail to be a total story.
I suppose I could push through the final five stories in this book, but I'm too old to spend time with books or people who don't inspire my mind.