Readably bloody, gay lore galore, but regrettably lacking in gay humor.
Debut novel of a swank gay-vampire series set in Greenwich Village.
Jean-Luc Courbet, who bounds over tall buildings, has been around for more than 100 years and, in fact, attended the premiere of Moussorgski’s Boris Godunov at the Bolshoi in 1888, which he recalls while having a neck of a long drink in his box at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Opera. Jean-Luc is a towering snob (the Met is dowdy, American apartments are too squat to be graceful), though in the States he calls himself “Jack.” Just arrived on this shore, Jack takes up Village digs and cruises nightly for trim, well-built men, drinking them dry during their raptures as he sodomizes them. Though his beauty narcotizes his victims, we have a hard time warming up to this ice-cold hero, whose normal temperature gives his victims goose-bumps. Before setting forth each evening, with cowboy boots to give him extra height, Jack first sends forth his dark-winged spirit to scan Village streets for the victim whose blood will keep vampirism healthy in his ageless flesh. Nice facts about Jack: he stocks his apartment with food and toilet paper he never uses; his sebaceous glands secrete no oil, so he leaves no fingerprints; he makes love with sexy little nips and bites over an hour’s passage, the victim unaware of blood loss. The narrative darts about France and London in long italicized passages as we discover Jean-Luc’s origins: his mother, Noël Courbet, 14 when she gave birth to her bastard, went on to become France’s greatest actress before Bernhardt. Vastly rich (and blood-sucking) Phillipe de Charnac “turned” Noël, married her, then turned his stepson and became Jean-Luc’s lover before Noël murdered him. She spends the rest of the novel chasing Jean-Luc, intending to kill him as well. Jack, meanwhile, falls for frighteningly beautiful Claude Halloran. Will Jack turn Claude? Will Noël fry Jack?
Readably bloody, gay lore galore, but regrettably lacking in gay humor.Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-57566-764-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
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
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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