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Friday, Aug 29, 2008
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Book Marks |
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| Book Marks | ||
| by Richard Labonte -
SGN Contributing Writer
BORDERLINE BY TERRI BRENEMAN (BELLA BOOKS, $13.95) A truck driver is incensed because he thinks his traffic accident ought to be blamed on assistant prosecuting attorney Toni Barston's driving. Not long after, he's murdered. A corrupt judge tosses Barston's case against a burglar out of court. Not long after, he's murdered. The defense attorney in cahoots with the judge is murdered, too. And back at the office, creepy anonymous packages are arriving in the mail from someone stalking Barston. Is the stalker also the killer? Or is an unhinged Barston wreaking revenge on her opponents? Breneman's able sequel to the first Toni Barston mystery, Anticipation, juggles assorted suspects with sufficient plot feints and plausible motives to mask the identity of the real killer. Not as successful are the red herrings around the romance that blossoms between Barston and a semi-closeted FBI agent; though other potential sexual entanglements tease the reader, the one that matters is telegraphed early. But doubts about the identity of the killer, and of the stalker, remain until nearly the end - it's always satisfying when the "who" that "dunnit" is hard to guess. MURDER IN THE RUE CHARTRES BY GREG HERREN (ALYSON BOOKS, $14.95) The murder of a wealthy New Orleans businesswoman, and a horrific nightclub fire years earlier that devastated the Gay community, propel the third of Herren's mildly raunchy Chanse Macleod mysteries. Making a return appearance from previous Chanse tales are two companionable cops, a drink-besotted female best friend, a well-muscled gym owner with relationship woes, and a benevolent New Orleans grand dame. Characters central to this book's plot include a woman consigned to a genteel insane asylum, and a sinister old man who holds the threads to the mystery Chanse must unravel. But post-Katrina New Orleans, where Herren lives, is really the dominant character in what is as much a passionate paean to a city as it is a clever (and logical) mystery. Herren, personally anguished by the hurricane's devastation, angered by the government's lackadaisical response, and exhilarated by slight signs of renewal - Chanse's old gym is back in business - imbues this atmospheric mystery with Herren's emotional attachment to a beaten-down town, to its slow resurrection, and to the perseverance of its residents. DRIFTING TOWARD LOVE: BLACK, BROWN, GAY, AND COMING OF AGE ON THE STREETS OF NEW YORK BY KAI WRIGHT (BEACON BOOKS, $24.95) Based on lengthy interviews with a slew of Queer New York street kids, Wright's account of adolescent troubles and triumphs is a compelling synthesis of vivid hands-on journalism and dry - but informative - analysis. Several teens are profiled; what they have in common, survival skills aside, is their revolving relationship to an ad hoc crash pad and community center in a Brooklyn home owned by progressive older Queers. Wright captures the "tumult of adolescence" nicely, as he recounts how boys between 13 and late teens struggle with coming out, with parental rejection, with turning tricks in Prospect Park, with the all-consuming hustle of life on the streets, and - in some cases - with developing a sense of social injustice and political activism. The pluck of the kids - their amazing resilience in the face of lackluster social services, hostile school environments, and the ever-present risk of HIV - is a testament to young Queer spirit. Not every at-risk youth escapes the physical and emotional devastation of life on the streets, but Wright's portrait of a few who have is a tonic. THE LETTERS OF NOEL COWARD EDITED BY BARRY DAY (KNOPF, $37.50) How odd that the index for a book drawn from the letters of Noel Coward, Britain's most-quoted Queer writer after Oscar Wilde, has but two references to "homosexuality." In both, Day - whose otherwise brisk and well-informed commentary illuminates the hundreds of letters, telegrams, and even poems collected in this luscious tome - rather snarkily chastises readers for thinking of the British playwright and performer as an avatar of Gay culture. If you can get past Day's old-school fulminations, though, this collection of correspondence is a sumptuous record of a life lived large. From his slams of Tallulah Bankhead ("a conceited slut") and Beatrice Lillie ("a c---") to his adoration of the British Queen Mother ("a dear darling"), Coward is by turns witty, sentimental, peevish, generous, bitchy, and scintillating - often in the same letter. From Gertrude Stein to Ian Fleming, from Greta Garbo (who proposed) to Marlene Dietrich, and from Virginia Woolf to Winston Churchill (who nixed a knighthood), Coward hobnobbed with a universe of movie stars, stage actors, and other writers. The dish is deep at this bon mots banquet. FEATURED EXCERPT: Apart from time's winged chariot, the thread that goes through this life in letters is, indeed, love. Not the homosexual definition of love that can now not only speak but positively shout its name. That was not the Coward style. As his friend Rebecca West always maintained, "He was a very dignified man. There was an impeccable dignity in his sexual life, which was reticent but untainted by pretense." He would not have been well pleased to become a Gay icon at the expense of his work or to observe, for instance, a generation of young Gay directors giving us Coward plays "as darling Noel would have produced them." - from The Letters of Noel Coward, edited by Barry Day FOOTNOTES: Gay historian Allan Berube, winner of a Lambda Literary award in 1990 for Coming Out Under Fire, a history of Gay women and men who served in World War II, died December 11 of complications following surgery for stomach ulcers. He had turned 61 the week before. Berube, a self-taught historian of both the Gay and the labor movements, was a founder of the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay History Project in 1978, and after moving to New York began research into Queer identities in the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union from the 1930s to the 1950s. In 1996, he was one of 20 recipients of a MacArthur Fellowship "genius" grant; his book was adapted into a Peabody Award-winning documentary by Arthur Dong in 1994. His death followed the November 27 passing of another major figure in Queer literature and activism, Jane Rule, who died of liver cancer at her Galiano Island, British Columbia, home at age 76. Rule, best known as author of the 1964 lesbian romance Desert of the Heart - filmed in 1986 by Donna Deitch as Desert Hearts - was the author of a dozen books, many published by Naiad Press, including Memory Board, This Is Not For You, and her last novel, After the Fire, in 1989. A collection of her essays is forthcoming in 2008 from a small Vancouver Island press, Hedgerow. She was made a member of the prestigious Order of Canada early in 2007. Richard Labonte has been reading, editing, selling, and writing about Queer literature since the mid-'70s. He can be reached in care of this publication or at BookMarks@qsyndicate.com. |
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