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Gay Fiction
Condition: Very good Very slight damage corners but spine unbroken and otherwise as new. Plot / Content: "Caught between his parents when he is small; between society and his true self as he grows older; and finally between his hopes and the killer AIDS when he is mature, Ben tries to make sense out of the life he has been given. Growing up in a blue-collar working-man's world, rejected, thrown into a frightening marriage, he finally tries to live the gay life he chooses, only to find out it's later than he thinks." (from the cover) Background / Biography: "Daniel Curzon is the author of several books acclaimed for their literary content, biting prose and realistic portrayal of life. He lives in San Francisco, holds a PhD in literature and teaches at a local college." (from the cover) Previous titles include Something You Do In the Dark, The Misadventures of Tim McPick, The Revolt of the Perverts, Among the Carnivores, Human Warmth and Other Stories, The Joyful Blue Book of Gracious Gay Etiquette, From Violent Men, Deathsman. Reviews: In the early days of gay fiction one staple theme was biography, as the author followed his protagonist through life from birth to adulthood. There was a tendency, whcih may or may not have been conscious, to reflect the Freudian view that a weak or distant father and close-binding mother "explained" a man's homosexuality. The intention was almost always sympathetic rather than critical, to demonstrate that being gay did not make one any less human. Now here comes Daniel Curzon, a post-Stonewall writer with a string of books to his name, offering us the story of Benjamin Vance in The world can break your heart. To make his intentions quite clear that he is somehow explaining homosexuality, he dedicates the book "to all straight readers so that they know what it felt like to grow up gay and for all gay people so they won't forget". Benjamin is a classic case, there's no doubt about it; a cissy who wets his bed until he's twelve, plays with dolls and would rather put on plays than go fishing with his dad and next door neighbour. On top of that, Benjamin is also a Catholic and tormented by fears of what might happen to him if he pollutes his flesh or longs to pollute the flesh of others. With a failure fo a father and a nag for a mother, it is hardly surprising that he grows up insecure, gay at heart and despite his marriage and two children. If we do not necessarily like Benjamin, neither do we despise him. Curzon brings him to adulthood a fully-rounded character, one who is familiar and perhaps uncomfortably so. Unfortunately, like many writers before him, Curzon gets bored with his subject as the book nears its two hundredth page. Eager to get the whole thing off his hands he rushes through the next (and probably the last) twenty years of Benjamin's life with indecent haste. The detail that made Benjamin interesting is sacrificed for a précis that renders him dislikable while the significant moments of his latter years such as living with his first lover and the urgent hunt for sex as a successful film career eludes him, are buried in the blank spaces between paragraphs. Benjamin has hardened into an unpleasant, selfish fag and Curzon denies us the opportunity he earlier offered, of looking underneath the façade to see the vulnerable person beneath. The ending of this book is Curzon's weakness. His strength is reflected in the fact that while Benjamin the adult hardly touches us, we remember long afterwards Benjamin the boy and youth. Review (1987) © Martin Foreman Clicking on advertiser links on this site may allow these companies to gather and use information about your visit to this and other websites to provide you with advertisements about goods and services presumed to be of interest to you. |
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