SURPRISING MYSELF

by Christopher Bram ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1987

Though maned by melodrama and overplotting, Brain's fast is a warm, lively story of a young gay man's sexual coming-of-age. Narrator Joel Scherzenlieb and his lover, Corey Cobbett, are a couple of young Southerners who have set up housekeeping on New York's Upper West Side in the mid-70's. Corey is a kind, patient, trusting social worker; Joel, more mercurial, is living on unemployment while on a self-enlightenment kick. He picks up his first one-night stand during an opera, and soon is using his weekly ""opera nights"" to cheat steadily on an unsuspecting Corey. New York's cruising scene at the time is rendered with great, gritty verve and verisimilitude; the novel really catches fire, though, with a superb portrayal of Joel's encounter with an old homophobic enemy from adolescence--now gay himself--with whom Joel makes a kind of fierce, vengeful love. Unfortunately, the flames are doused with the arrival of Joel's sister Liza--baby in arms--who is fleeing her stifling husband, Bob. The whole fractious Scherzenlieb family (including Joel's hip, irresponsible father and liberated mother) gets involved in the long-winded, bathetic dispute; by the time the dust clears and Bob is vanquished, the novel's original sharpness is lost. The ending has Joel and Corey nearly breaking up (Joel has admitted his infidelity) before deciding to try to salvage their relationship: Joel will look before he leaps, and Corey will presumably stop doing his imitation of an Irish setter. Still, despite its faults, a moving, perceptive commentary on gay life, especially early in the book.

Pub Date: May 1, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Donald Fine

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1987

Categories: FICTION