Okay, I finished it.

I reached the end of Almost Like Being in Love. (And for crap's sake, don't read this if you hate spoilers. I'm not a reviewer.)

When Kluger writes poignant, he writes poignant so damned well, with a sweetness that's almost rarified. I teared up over this or that phrase, teared up over this or that scene, ached for Travis, ached for Craig . . . then wanted to kick them both in the ass by letting my foot connect with the book.

Why? Because there was so much piddling around at the end of the story, such bizarre, herky-jerk pacing, so many scene shifts and switches of perspective, so many incomprehensible reactions and decisions and changes of heart, that the poignancy kept being diluted or completely neutralized. I had no bloody idea who would end up with whom (except in the case of a half-dozen secondary characters) until the last handful of pages. Up to then, I felt as if my chain was being jerked forty-three different ways.

When the Big Reunion I'd been waiting for finally seemed solid enough not to crumble beneath yet another switcheroo -- and I had to re-read a bunch of pages several times to make sure -- it was anticlimactic. By that point, I'd already been duped more times than I could count. (The deus ex machina breakup that paved the way for the reunion was so damned abrupt, I almost missed it. What's more, it was shockingly offhanded, given all the un-breakup-like words and actions that preceded it.)

I wanted buildup, damn it, not a carnival ride! I wanted to be all breathless with anticipation and melty inside and then puddle up at the end . . . because I haven't had a good cry over a book since "Brokeback." Instead, my reaction was more like Finally. Am I allowed to be happy for these guys now? Sheesh.

Maybe the conclusion of this story was the author's nod to real life; happy endings, if they come at all, don't often come tidily. But since the rest of the book was anything but a nod to real life, why start when the romance should be ratcheting up instead of flung around in the Mad Tea Party ride at Disneyland? Or maybe the author was trying to demonstrate precisely how and why the heroes were special, why their love endured, why they were worthy of their HEA. That I can appreciate, but I just can't appreciate the way he did it.

I've been spoiled by the romance genre. I realize now just how much. I've turned into a complete sap. Maybe I've turned into a complete simpleton. Hell, maybe I've always been a closet idealist who craves that satisfyingly predictable march from estrangement to togetherness with no emotional detours or artificial barriers so close to the end.

In any case, kudos to Kluger. I only get this riled up if I'm either totally invested in characters or totally alienated by them. And I wasn't alienated. In fact, I was very nearly heartbroken at a couple of points.

Phrew. Now what should I read?

Almost Like Being in Love

That's what I'm now reading, that sweet, funny love story Wave so highly recommended. I was sucked in by it at first. I laughed frequently; sometimes I wanted to cry. Then twenty years passed between chapters -- blammy! -- and the heroes, now a continent apart, were all grown up and involved in their respective lives and careers.

That wasn't a problem for me at first. Passages of time exist in most novels. Temporary estrangement of the central couple is also common. Still, as I read on, I started getting just a teensy bit irked and impatient. With the heroes apart, the author started dishing up too much clever-and-amusing just for the sake of clever-and-amusing. Every character that was introduced was clever-and-amusing.

I also realized I was getting bored with the baseball fetish and the lawyer-related stuff, and that without any significant plot involving the book's original couple, the entire narrative was being carried on the back of clever-and-amusing. Only ... the narrative didn't seem to be going anywhere.

Is that it? I wondered. Is too-much-of-a-good-thing dampening this reading experience for me?

Out of curiosity, I went to Amazon to check out other readers' reactions. The book was almost universally praised, but there were a few sniffy souls who gave it a 1. A freakin' 1. (I wasn't thoroughly surprised; there are grumblers everywhere, and they're often self-righteous types who take themselves WAY too seriously because they've had their sense of humor surgically removed.) But I perused their comments anyway, hoping to get a fix on my own small undercurrent of disaffection.

Sure enough, these negative "reviews" were generally hightoned and dry and pretty much beyond my comprehension, as if these people and I had read two entirely different books. But one of them did say something that struck a chord: there's no differentiation among the characters' voices.

Yup, that was it. Or part of it. A sudden plethora of players, all of whom have the same voice: the protagonists, their male and female friends, their gay and straight friends, their lovers, students, coworkers, parents, even a young boy. They all, and I mean ALL, were dipping from the same witty, educated voice-pot. I wouldn't have been able to tell them apart if the author hadn't made it obvious whose words I was reading.

What's more, their droll observations and snappy repartee had been substituted for any kind of storyline. The book just stalled out in the middle. The cast of characters bumbled around in a Three Stooges kind of way, saying and doing zany things. As much as I love humor, it started getting on my nerves.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still engaged by this book and still eagerly anticipating the reunion of the protags. If there's an HEA buzzkill, though, I'll be rip-roaringly pissed off.

I almost always learn something from the novels and stories I read, either through positive or negative example. In addition to providing me with hours of entertainment, Almost Like Being in Love has been an eye-opener, another object lesson in the craft of fiction.

Call Me...in The Back Passage

Finished Call Me by Your Name and am now reading The Back Passage. Wow, night to day.

CMbYN left me with mixed feelings. Although I ended up becoming engrossed in the protagonists' journey, and found Elio's character particularly poignant at the end (yes, I did tear up), I later got angry. Why? Because, unlike Brokeback Mountain, there was really no excuse for these men not to get together.

The story takes place from roughly 1985 to 2005. Both protags move in liberal artistic and academic circles, in Europe as well as on the U.S. eastern seaboard. The narrator's parents are seemingly accepting-- and the father, even envious--of his affair with Oliver. If each man viewed the other as his "heart of hearts," what kept them apart?

Not the time or the place(s), and surely not social or peer pressure. Not the men's sexual dynamic or a gross imbalance of feeling. Not parental disapproval. What, then?

I know from personal experience that the need to be with one's "soulmate" is not eroded by time, distance, or circumstance. I know this. So, ultimately, I felt manipulated by the author. I felt he'd thrown up completely illusory barriers to keep the men separated. Was this a case of angst for the sake of angst? Don't know.

Anyway, on to The Back Passage by James Lear (2006, Cleis Press).

So far, I love it! I love the narrator's insouciant voice and attitude and his self-indulgent carnality. He makes no excuses for himself. I love how the author plays fast and loose, in an affectionate, tongue-in-cheek way, with British "drawing room" character types and family intrigue and all the other norms of cozy mysteries. Although I'd expected this book to be raunchy, it's far tamer than most current m/m erotic romance -- mine included. But the narrator's sheer, unapologetic horniness, combined with the author's solid prose and delightful irreverence, have put back the happy in me that CMbYN sucked away.

I just need to get through this period of compulsive reading so I can return to writing! (I'll tell you about my new project within the week, as well as a development related to me and Samhain.)

Call Me by Your Name -- Round One

I am forty pages into Andre Aciman's acclaimed novel of homosexual awakening (for lack of a better succinct term) and waiting for several things:

• the formation of a timeline, since trying to determine which seemingly insignificant, supposedly revelatory event takes place two days, ten days, or two weeks into the story (So far, there's a lot of zigging and zagging.)


• some pruning of the lush prose and long and winding sentences, which often leave me breathless in an unpleasant way


• suspension of disbelief re. the narrator's age (I'm having trouble remembering this is a 17-year-old boy and not Michael Caine's character from the movie Educating Rita.)


• action and/or more than a few lines of dialogue at a time


• sex (God, popular fiction has made me one shallow and impatient plebe!)

I just read some reviews on Amazon to see if anybody else had begun to squirm, so quickly, under the weight of this novel's dense, obsessive, and repetitious introspection. Hell yeah; I'm not alone. In fact, there are some very literate and incisive 1-star reviews. A reader actually gave up right around the point I just reached.

I'm intrigued enough to keep going, though, and hope this book's saving graces do indeed save it. (Yes, it has many saving graces, but they're swamped by authorial self-indulgence.) I also hope I don't have to slog through one more dissection and microscopic analysis of the breezy farewell, "Later!" I'd never realized how nuanced it could be. But now that my brain is glutted on its nuances, I could use a break.

Stay tuned.

A Most Excellent Surprise from Blind Eye Books

If you visit this blog with any regularity (says the dreamer), you've read my effusions about Wicked Gentlemen by Ginn Hale. That startling and superior two-part novel caused me to begin keeping a close eye on Blind Eye, the publisher. (Click on the post title to go there.) It's an intriguing little pub, clearly dedicated to literary as well as graphic quality, so when it ran a contest . . . well, guess which book-whore sat up and took notice.

Yeah, you betcha.

Prizes for the winners? Copies of Blind Eye's recent anthology, Tangle, reviews for which I began devouring as soon as they appeared. And I was a winner--lord, what a rare occurrence--and my copy arrived today! I am so going to read this baby ASAP.

So thank you, Ms. Kimberling, for this unexpected gift. More important, thank you for running a classy, groundbreaking, risk-taking press, the products of which delight both the mind and the eye. I am officially one of your fangirls.

EDITED TO ADD: I've read two-and-a-half stories so far. Don't want to say too much just yet, but I really can't keep quiet about Jesse Sandoval's "Los Conversos". Just can't. I haven't read such numinous fiction in a very long time. (I was going to call it luminous, which is also apt, but numinous describes it more accurately.) Wow. If any story in this anthology surpasses Sandoval's, I'm afraid my head will spin right off my neck.

HOW NOT TO: Write Dialogue

Now that I've wiped the tears from my eyes, I thought it might be a good time to start a series of learning-through-negative-example writing lessons, courtesy of some fic posted at Litrotica. Oops, sorry, I meant Literotica (http://www.literotica.com/stories/index.php). I'm really a huge fan of this site -- well, some of this site -- as are, apparently, many other pervs . . . uh, readers. So, for any current or aspiring erotica writers, here are a few examples of how NOT to write dialogue in those sizzling stories your hormone-besotted brain is just itching to ooze out into the public domain.

Example 1 - "OHHHH GODDDDDDDDDDD, I'm cumminggggggggggggggg," I screamed loudly as my pussy exploded in wave after wave of crashing orgasms. "Oh, here I cummmmmmmmmmmmmm, God it feels soooooooo gooddddddddddd!"

Comment 1 - Bear in mind it's very difficult for a human being to replicate these "words" without sounding like something other than a human being. You may end up sounding like a foghorn, a woodpecker, a flat tire on a still-moving car . . . but not a person. Then again, if your pussy is exploding, I suppose you're going to make all kinds of weird noises.

Example 2 - "OHHH!! YESSSS!!! HARDER. . . . OH YESSSSSS. . . YESSSS!! OH SWEET LORD! THAT’S SO FUCKING GOOD! YES! YES! YES! OH MY GOD YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!! SUCK IT! SUCK IT HARDER! I’M THERE! OH BABY SUCK ME!!! HARD.I’M THERE! AHHH!! AHHH. . . AHHH. . . AHHH. . . AHHH. . . AHHH. . . AHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. GODDDDDDDDDDDDD. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
OH THAT"S IT!! YES. OH FUCK YES. OH GOD I'M GOING TO CUM BABY! OH SHIT. EAT ME!! OHHH. . FUCK. . YESSSSS. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
YES. YES! YES! YES! YES! S U C KKKK MEEEEEE. BABYYYYYYY. I’M GOING AGAIN
SUCK ME!! SUCK ME!! SUCK MEW HARDER!! YOU HAVE TO SUCK ME HARDER! HURT ME BABY!!. SUCK ME!! SUCK ME!! SUCK ME!! SUCK ME HARDER!!! OHHH GOD BABY!! HARDER! HARDER! HARDER DAM IT!! OHHH YES!!! LIKE THAT!! JUST LIKE THAT!! AHHHHHH. AHHHHHHHH. YESSSSSSSSSS. JESUS!! THAT’S IT!! OH GOD YES!! THAT"S IT!! YESSSSSSSSSS. YESSSSSSSS. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*** EAT ME!! EAT ME!! EAT ME!! EAT ME!! EAT ME!! EAT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE ***
EAT ME. DAM YOU EAT ME!! OH FUCK YES! OH GOD! THAT’S IT JUST LIKE THAT!! MUMMM!! OH YES! OH YES! IT’S SO FUCKING GOOD BABY.
AHHHHHH MY GOD YES. YES. YES. YES. THAT’S IT. THAT’S IT. I’M CUMMING. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Comment 2 - I'll admit, I did pluck these effusions from different paragraphs and glom them all together, but considering the "story" didn't go beyond several pages, it was pretty well jam-packed with capital letters and exclamation points. (I especially like the line I set off with asterisks; it's what I hear from every piece of chocolate within a ten-mile radius when I'm trying to diet.) Now, what does this manic hollering remind you of? The finest intimate moments you've ever had or imagined? I didn't think so.

Example 3 -

"Hunh," she growled. "Hunh, hunh."
[Her partner, obviously of a different species, must not understand, so she tries a new set of phonemes.]
"Ahhhhhh," she squealed. "ah, ah, ah!"
[Nope. No go. So, instead of vocalizing via the folds in her throat, she tries vocalizing with other body parts.]
"Mmph," said her lips. "Mmph, mmph."
[Damn, still no luck. Maybe a combination . . .]
"Hunh, ahhhh, oh, yes, yes, oh GOD!"
[Success! Uh, but wait. Dig this. Just when she's finally cracked the language barrier . . . ]
"Are you and I done?" she asked.

Comment 3 - Sometimes it's better if characters keep their damned mouths shut -- well, unless they're doing something productive with them.

Wicked Gentlemen: Sex, Violence & Long Teeth

Finally, I allowed myself the luxury of setting aside half a day just to read. Delicious! I opened my copy of Ginn Hale's Wicked Gentlemen and dove in. By the way, here's where you can get it: http://www.blindeyebooks.com/wicked.html.

Hella cover, too . . . ain'a?

For those of you who haven't heard of Wicked Gentlemen, this two-part novel has garnered rapturous praise from everybody who's read it. Without exception. And, as much as I despise being a copycat, I must add my rapturous praise to the field. I can only describe the book by stringing together words and phrases, because one alone won't do. It's a moody steampunk futuristic urban dystopian gay fantasy romance thriller. And, yes, an absolutely stunning work. (I'm not going to launch into a big ol' synopsis-and-review thing here, because the book has been out for almost a year and there's plenty of commentary already to be found on the 'Net.)

The world Hale constructs is simultaneously repugnant and absorbing. Demonic protagonist Belimai Sykes is one of the most layered, poignant, darkly fascinating and thoroughly unlikely "heroes" I've ever come across--an anti-hero, actually. His lover, the all-too-human Captain Harper, is Belimai's perfect complement. The book's first section, especially, is a stylistic tour de force. Packed within economical prose are images so vivid they're breathtaking. I felt my mode of perception had been altered. That effect is no small accomplishment for a writer.

I'm still in awe.

Is the work perfect? No . . . as much as I wanted it to be. But rather than pick and poke at it, I'll just focus on one aspect of Wicked Gentlemen that particularly struck me: its treatment of two subjects near and dear to our cultural hearts.

Sex and violence.

I found a jarring discrepancy in the author's approach to them.

Hale neither quails from nor wallows in bloodshed. Her touch is deft. She describes Belimai's ravaged body with a stark lyricism as elegant as it is brutal. Those paragraphs were mesmerizing. Subsequent scenes of savagery are rendered in unflinching detail that manages to steer clear of sadistic relish.

Yet, when the protagonists' first sexual encounter takes place, Hale rushes through it with an odd diffidence, as if neither she nor we have any business being there. The second engagement (and there are only two in the whole book) is a bit more prolonged but still marked by circumspection and even a dash of awkwardness. Suddenly, the prose becomes a bit creaky and teeters toward cliche.

It almost seems as if this is Hale's first time wading into these descriptive waters, and her otherwise assured authorial voice suddenly abandons her (not entirely, of course, but enough to be noticeable). In any case, I found it odd. There was so much unrealized potential for sensuality, which would have provided a lush counterbalance to all the grungy bleakness, that I wanted to scream. Moreover, Belimai and Harper deserved the author's indulgence of their physical attraction and emotional bond. Their relationship is emblematic of everything sorely lacking in their world.

Now, here's where I get picky. Or maybe not. I'm rather surprised no one else has raised this, uh . . . point.

When creating nonhuman characters who will end up having sex with human characters, it's important that the author consider the physical traits of those nonhumans. Hale's demons or "Prodigals" have yellow eyes, black fingernails, pointed ears, black hair. So far, so good. All are appropriate distinguishing features. BUT . . . it's when teeth are added to the profile that problems arise. You see, the demons' teeth are long. And pointed. And not, as far as I could tell, retractable.

I kept thinking of those damned teeth whenever Belimai got cozy with Harper. How did they manage to kiss in a passionate way? More disturbing to contemplate was oral sex. I'm sure you catch my drift. Why wasn't Harper's tongue or penis shredded into something resembling the streamers on a wind sock? I would much rather have seen the demon with a triangular navel or vestigial tail -- anything less obtrusive, in terms of physical intimacy, than long, sharp teeth. Ouch. I kept hoping the author would explain that arousal dulled them. Or something.

Anyway, Wicked Gentlemen is not a tale for squeamish readers who like stories woven from sunbeams. Although it does have an uplifting ending, getting there is an often grim ride. More important, though, the book is remarkable and gripping and infinitely more satisfying than the uninspired and derivative fiction that hogs store shelves and bestseller lists. It's more than just a good read. It's an utterly unique experience that demands the imagination's immersion. And what a thrill that immersion is.