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A review by daviddavidkatzman
Any Human Face by Charles Lambert
4.0
[I'm bringing back this review in support of author Charles Lambert's new novel A View from the Tower]
Christopher Moore should write a gay James Bond. Or maybe I should. Film rights would be snapped up in a jiffy. Stick around, kids, I’m tossing out million-dollar ideas like condoms at a Pride Parade. Charles Lambert’s new novel Any Human Face is being called in the U.K. press a thriller “set on the seamier fringe of Rome’s gay scene.” However, if you come to Any Human Face expecting The Bourne Gay-Identity, you’ll be disappointed. If you come looking for weighty, believable human drama set within multi-layered political intrigue, then you’ve turned the right page.
I think that the Guardian’s description of the setting as “the seamier fringe of Rome’s gay scene” is a bit o’ backhanded homophobia. Yes, there is a character who shoots some “pornographic” photography and probably video, too, but he’s rather a Mother Hen type who takes care of any stray (gay or bird) off the street. He’s more on the noble side than the seamy side, and the main relationships in the story are quite sensitive, not sleazy. All the sleaze (murders) are political and unrelated to sexual identity. Yes, there are some graphic sexual moments but only to reflect what occurs in real relationships. I mean, like…you’ve done it, right, squire?
I would describe this novel rather as a thoughtful character study of a quirky gay bookstore owner and sometime art/antiquity dealer named Andrew in Rome who stumbles into a political vipers nest involving high-level politicians and Vatican officials doing very bad things. At its core, the story is about Andrew’s struggle to overcome heartbreak from his past and learn to love again. This book being a literary work and not a hack best-seller, Lambert manages to integrate some thoughtful commentary on writing, art, and photography as well by having the main character try to set up an art show in his bookstore. Lambert creates an interesting juxtaposition between theory/critique and reality through this art show. The co-curator of the show expresses a complex gibberish of analysis to explain how the photographs in the exhibit are “Art.” When the reality is that one of the photographs reveals an actual crime being committed; it’s a performative photograph, if you will, that is FUCKING EVIDENCE OF A (crime i will not identify so as not to spoil it but you can probably guess). So…ehem..fuck your critique. Of course, Lambert isn’t anti-intellectual, but he certainly shows how literary and art theory can tie itself up in a knot of incestuous bullcrap.
Just as in his short stories, Lambert doesn’t grandstand as a writer, rather he creates a compelling reality and allows the characters to express themselves naturally. I found Andrew to be absolutely convincing as a real human being. Although the book is not as fast paced as you might expect a thriller to be, when Andrew was in actual physical danger in the story, my heart was racing, and I couldn’t put the book down.
Any Human Face has quite a few interesting characters, including the Mother Hen character I mentioned before who dresses like a “tribal queen or brothel keeper” in swathes of flowery curtain-pajamas. And the bitchiest rich hag of an art-gallery maven you’ll ever come across. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel as a taste of Rome and the inner life and struggles of Andrew to make a life for himself despite his fears of aging, of failing, and more than anything else, of being lonely.
Christopher Moore should write a gay James Bond. Or maybe I should. Film rights would be snapped up in a jiffy. Stick around, kids, I’m tossing out million-dollar ideas like condoms at a Pride Parade. Charles Lambert’s new novel Any Human Face is being called in the U.K. press a thriller “set on the seamier fringe of Rome’s gay scene.” However, if you come to Any Human Face expecting The Bourne Gay-Identity, you’ll be disappointed. If you come looking for weighty, believable human drama set within multi-layered political intrigue, then you’ve turned the right page.
I think that the Guardian’s description of the setting as “the seamier fringe of Rome’s gay scene” is a bit o’ backhanded homophobia. Yes, there is a character who shoots some “pornographic” photography and probably video, too, but he’s rather a Mother Hen type who takes care of any stray (gay or bird) off the street. He’s more on the noble side than the seamy side, and the main relationships in the story are quite sensitive, not sleazy. All the sleaze (murders) are political and unrelated to sexual identity. Yes, there are some graphic sexual moments but only to reflect what occurs in real relationships. I mean, like…you’ve done it, right, squire?
I would describe this novel rather as a thoughtful character study of a quirky gay bookstore owner and sometime art/antiquity dealer named Andrew in Rome who stumbles into a political vipers nest involving high-level politicians and Vatican officials doing very bad things. At its core, the story is about Andrew’s struggle to overcome heartbreak from his past and learn to love again. This book being a literary work and not a hack best-seller, Lambert manages to integrate some thoughtful commentary on writing, art, and photography as well by having the main character try to set up an art show in his bookstore. Lambert creates an interesting juxtaposition between theory/critique and reality through this art show. The co-curator of the show expresses a complex gibberish of analysis to explain how the photographs in the exhibit are “Art.” When the reality is that one of the photographs reveals an actual crime being committed; it’s a performative photograph, if you will, that is FUCKING EVIDENCE OF A (crime i will not identify so as not to spoil it but you can probably guess). So…ehem..fuck your critique. Of course, Lambert isn’t anti-intellectual, but he certainly shows how literary and art theory can tie itself up in a knot of incestuous bullcrap.
Just as in his short stories, Lambert doesn’t grandstand as a writer, rather he creates a compelling reality and allows the characters to express themselves naturally. I found Andrew to be absolutely convincing as a real human being. Although the book is not as fast paced as you might expect a thriller to be, when Andrew was in actual physical danger in the story, my heart was racing, and I couldn’t put the book down.
Any Human Face has quite a few interesting characters, including the Mother Hen character I mentioned before who dresses like a “tribal queen or brothel keeper” in swathes of flowery curtain-pajamas. And the bitchiest rich hag of an art-gallery maven you’ll ever come across. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel as a taste of Rome and the inner life and struggles of Andrew to make a life for himself despite his fears of aging, of failing, and more than anything else, of being lonely.