Tag: Men

ARC, Books

Book 332: Male Sex Work and Society – Victor Minichiello and John Scott (eds.)

Geoff W

Minichiello, Victor and John Scott - Male Sex Work and Society

This book simultaneously highlights what is good and what is bad about the white tower of academia. It explores a specific topic (Amazon Afiliate link) in depth, while establishing absolutely nothing, other than the need for more research. I received a copy of this book from the publisher and received no compensation for my honest opinion.

I’m going to start with my frustrations with the book (or academia/academics in a broader context) first and then move to what they did well. What frustrated me most about the entire collection were the isolationist tendencies of the authors. In a move to over-compensate for any sort of collective or global identity (and not Western-wash everything) every single paper started out within the first few paragraphs by using the almost exact phrase of, “due to cultural circumstances, male sex workers (MSWs) circumstances in this country cannot be compared to those in any other country.” The reason this was so infuriating is that there were clearly overarching themes, sexual identity (or lack thereof), technology and public health, to name a few, that Manichiello and Scott picked out and even acknowledged. However, rather than encouraging the authors to use them to tie everything together within the papers across borders and identities, they were used to bridge each of the papers between the papers in editorial asides. Seriously, if they would’ve just taken this as a given, at least 50 pages could’ve been cut out of the book due to repetitiveness.

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ARC, Books

Book 330: Waiting for the Flood – Alexis Hall

Geoff W

Hall, Alexis - Waiting for the FloodIf I didn’t know better I’d say one of my good friends from high school (cough Alexandra cough) was writing under a pseudonym, “Alexis Hall” – HA! But that aside, I requested a copy of this novella from the publisher as the synopsis (Publisher’s website) caught my attention. I received a copy from the publisher and below is my honest response.

This is the story of Edwin and how he’s finally ready to get over his 10 year relationship which ended, not on bad terms, but on terms that he wasn’t able to comprehend. Having never been in a 10 year relationship (holy shit that’s 1/3 of my life – and Edwin’s!) I can’t really relate, but I can relate to coming out of a relationship not knowing what happened because it ended in a way that didn’t make sense and we apparently both thought and had different feelings on where things were and were going.

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Books

Book 260: Openly Straight – Bill Konigsberg

Geoff W

Konigsberg, Bill - Openly StraightI saw this book first on Sarah’s blog Sarah Reads Too Much and as soon as I saw the author and read her review I knew I wanted to read it. My first introduction to Bill Konigsberg was through his debut novel Out of the Pocket. It’s hard to believe I read it three years ago AND it was my very first book on my old Sony e-reader. The best part is as I did a quick re-read of that post Konigsberg answered quite a few of my critiques and he’s clearly matured as a fiction writer over the past few years!

As I read the book I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between this and Andrew Smith’s Winger which was a great novel I read last year. However, they are distinctly different and as much as I enjoyed Winger I would probably put this one ahead, not for the writing, but for the story and the subject matter.

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Book Group, Books

Book 19: The Berlin Stories – Christopher Isherwood

Geoff W

The Berlin Stories brings together two of what Isherwood wrote while inspired by the city of Berlin. His most famous character (who I did not know), Sally Bowles, comes from this time of his life when he lived in Berlin. He lived here prior to and leading up to World War II. The two stories in this book are The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin.

I believe Armistead Maupin stated it perfectly when he was discussing Isherwood’s writing style and how he uses words sparingly and only says what he means to say and therefore the writing is something incredibly beautiful and impacting. I definitely remember this from A Single Man and it rung through in this novel, but perhaps not as much.

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Quotes

Quote from Hometowns – John Preston

Geoff W

“Most men begin with the promise that we are, in fact, welcome. The boy child is, in almost all our known contexts, the heir. He has the right to assume that he will acquire whatever is possible in his world. If his background includes being the member of a disenfranchised group because of race, religion, ethnic background or class status, he still has the expectation of achieving the most that background will give him.

A gay man, since he is primarily a man, begins with those assumptions. It isn’t until he comes of age and understands his sexual identity and the ways it separates him from his birth community that a gay man achieves a perception of being a member of this particular minority. A woman’s self-identity doesn’t include a late discovery of her gender, a heterosexual Jew’s character is usually something that’s self-evident at an early age, but a gay man’s understanding of himself and his world doesn’t come into focus until much later.”