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ROMAN IVORY

Historically and culturally revelatory and poignantly emotional, but also intensely sexually explicit and disturbing.

In the late 19th century, the son of a recently deceased British banker discovers the dark erotic secrets of his father’s carefully concealed alternate life.

Robert Stapleton, son of Joseph Stapleton, the “1st Viscount Barrington,” is 19 years old when his father dies suddenly of rheumatic fever in December of 1877. At the formal reading of Joseph’s will, Robert learns that in addition to his father’s title and the family’s two homes (one in London and another in Surrey), he has inherited a third house, located on Carlton Hill in St. John’s Wood, London. The St. John’s Wood house is a surprise—Robert has never heard of its existence, though it’s evidently common knowledge among other family members. When he goes to London to examine the mysterious edifice, he’s confronted with an uncomfortable truth. The home contains a plethora of ancient Greek and Roman coins and pieces of pottery, all bearing images of male erotica, as well as several sketches of a young boy by an artist named Jean-Louis Fortin. One artifact is especially startling: “The object in the largest bag appeared to have been carved from an elephant tusk. The cylindrical shaft tapered slightly, but at one end was a large bulbous swelling, an almost completely smooth helmet-like protuberance…The piece was unmistakably phallic.” A conversation with the housekeeper reveals that Joseph entertained and offered shelter to various young male artists. Several days later, Robert visits an eminent archeologist at the British Museum and learns that the ivory object is identical to one found at the murder scene of an unscrupulous art dealer in Rome several decades earlier. The year of the murder coincides with the time Joseph spent touring the Continent studying art. Robert, who’s been wrestling with his own sexual attraction to men (an inclination he considers sinful), decides to travel through Europe to learn more about Joseph’s life during his time in Paris and Rome. Accompanying him is Joseph’s elderly and faithful valet, Walters, who speaks little but is adept at caring for Robert in style.

With Robert’s arrival in Paris, Bruegmann’s carefully scribed tale turns steamy and unsettling. The narrative is told in two parts, the first section narrated by Robert and the second by an older man, Fabrizio Croce, an art and antiquities dealer with whom Robert develops a relationship. The plotline takes a deep dive into a shadowy world of male homosexuality in 19th-century London, Paris, and Rome, a realm of sado-masochistic encounters between older, frequently married men and young boys who are paid or otherwise compensated for their participation. All of this is coated with the gloss of an interest in art obsessively focused on the male body. The novel is both a love story and an intriguing sociological and historical examination of the gay culture of the era, with a murder mystery thrown in for good measure. A surprise revelation at the end of Part One adds an additional twist to the story; however, Bruegmann’s indulgence in vividly graphic and fervent descriptions of sexual rituals that involve bondage, whipping, and assorted practices of domination and submission will likely narrow his audience.

Historically and culturally revelatory and poignantly emotional, but also intensely sexually explicit and disturbing.

Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2024

ISBN: 9798989559527

Page Count: 298

Publisher: Beautiful Dreamer Press

Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2024

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INTERMEZZO

Though not perfect, a clear leap forward for Rooney; her grandmaster status remains intact.

Two brothers—one a lawyer, one a chess prodigy—work through the death of their father, their complicated romantic lives, and their even more tangled relationship with each other.

Ten years separate the Koubek brothers. In his early 30s, Peter has turned his past as a university debating champ into a career as a progressive lawyer in Dublin. Ivan is just out of college, struggling to make ends meet through freelance data analysis and reckoning with his recent free fall in the world chess rankings. When their father dies of cancer, the cracks in the brothers’ relationship widen. “Complete oddball” Ivan falls in love with an older woman, an arts center employee, which freaks Peter out. Peter juggles two women at once: free-spirited college student Naomi and his ex-girlfriend Sylvia, whose life has changed drastically since a car accident left her in chronic pain. Emotional chaos abounds. Rooney has struck a satisfying blend of the things she’s best at—sensitively rendered characters, intimacies, consideration of social and philosophical issues—with newer moves. Having the book’s protagonists navigating a familial rather than romantic relationship seems a natural next step for Rooney, with her astutely empathic perception, and the sections from Peter’s point of view show Rooney pushing her style into new territory with clipped, fragmented, almost impressionistic sentences. (Peter on Sylvia: “Must wonder what he’s really here for: repentance, maybe. Bless me for I have. Not like that, he wants to tell her. Why then. Terror of solitude.”) The risk: Peter comes across as a slightly blurry character, even to himself—he’s no match for the indelible Ivan—so readers may find these sections less propulsive at best or over-stylized at worst. Overall, though, the pages still fly; the characters remain reach-out-and-touch-them real.

Though not perfect, a clear leap forward for Rooney; her grandmaster status remains intact.

Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024

ISBN: 9780374602635

Page Count: 464

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024

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THE WOMEN

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

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A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

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