An offbeat collection of well-told stories with LGBTQ themes.
A set of seven familiar folktales, retold with gay characters.
In Peters’ (Irresistible, 2018, etc.) anthology of what he calls “gayly subverted” tales, readers encounter gay protagonists in folkloric settings. In “Theseus and the Minotaur,” for instance, the Greek mythological hero Theseus winds his way to the center of the Labyrinth only to find a half man/half bull with a heartbreaking life story who isn’t the monster that many people claim him to be. In the story of “Károly, Who Kept a Secret,” a boy must hide the fact that his sword sings to him, even if it turns people that he loves against him. Fumihiro and Aito, in “The Peach Boy,” encounter a giant peach with a baby inside it, and Adalbert must overcome his own selfish ways in “The Vain Prince.” In “The Jaguar of the Backward Glance,” René encounters an unknown tribe in the jungle while on an expedition, and its shaman informs him of a curse on René’s ex-lover. An Egyptian merchant living in New York City encounters a jinn in “Ma’aruf the Street Vendor”; the man wishes for a new life elsewhere, but trouble finds him there, as well, In the final tale, “A Rabbit Grows in Brooklyn,” Ramon meets a strange man named “Rabbit” who seduces him and disappears, leaving him with nothing. Peters offers versions of seven classic tales that all receive his own unique spin, which often involves playing with his audience’s expectations regarding happy endings. Not every story ends happily; however, all of them feature love between two men. The collection’s title suggests a passionate romantic romp, but the author takes a relatively low-key, literary approach to his tales. His prose is clear and fluid, which gives the stories the traditional air of their original inspirations; as a result, aficionados of all kinds of folktales may be interested in putting this book on their shelves.
An offbeat collection of well-told stories with LGBTQ themes.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-951057-25-1
Page Count: 351
Publisher: NineStar Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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