HOLD TIGHT

by Christopher Bram ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 30, 1988

The author of Surprising Myself (1987) continues to break new ground with this spy thriller about Nazi intrigue and interracial romance in a homosexual brothel in Brooklyn. The Nazi intrigue has to do with a Third Reich sympathizer who sends his devoted daughter trolling for loose information from sailors off the ships tied up in the Brooklyn shipyard. The daughter hooks up with a fascist civilian recently graduated from Yale who, in order to impress the fascist dad, lets himself get swept into a manly bordello, where he believes he will pick up useful information on ship movements. Dim bulb that he is, the Yale Nazi fails to detect that the bordello has been taken over by US Naval intelligence who are themselves trying to catch gay Nazi spies, using the bait of a handsome, blonde, down-home, enthusiastically homosexual country boy by the name of Hank Fayette. Hank signed on with the Navy in order to whup the Axis powers, but he got swept up in an anti-perversion raid and was ordered to do his bit on his back. The interracial romance blooms when Hank becomes the polestar in the life of a young black transvestite laundry-and-scullery drudge in the bordello--an attachment that disturbs the Southern sensibilities of the otherwise exceptionally tolerant Seaman Fayette. Thriller fans, if intrigued by the new plot gimmick, are likely to be disappointed when the action starts to bog down in the rather goopy romance, and disconcerted by the unusual, no-holds-barred sex scenes.

Pub Date: June 30, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Donald Fine

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1988

Categories: FICTION