THE CONNECTICUT COUNTESS

by David Watmough ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1984

As in No More Into the Garden (1978), Watmough chronicles the gay experiences of Cornwall-born Davey Bryant--chunked up into small portions resembling stories. As a lad Davey falls in love with a boy cousin; he's seduced by an American soldier; he joins the Royal Navy; he becomes a lay assistant in an Anglican school, shepherding students--a very randy bunch--on a trip to Holland; he tries and fails to get a publishing job in New York; he and his decadent friends go to the country; he ends up living peacefully in Vancouver with lover Ken. In fact, these are almost exactly the same themes as in Watmough's previous book--with one slight change in direction: the emphasis moves here from homosexual self-awareness to an insistence on the discovery of other men's homosexuality; each story, in other words, features someone's uncloseting. But Watmough's prose has not advanced at all: ""My eyes closed as I found what my loinal self so hungrily searched. I swayed, I think, in the vertigo of lust, With a caress as much informed by exhausted relief, as triumph, I boldly charted the width and length of his stiffening prick."" And these are really just recycled versions of Davey's pallid, preening, ""loinal"" episodes.

Pub Date: May 1, 1984

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Crossing Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1984

Categories: FICTION