Definitely not for the timid, this Bacchanalian confection conjoins two gay couples, a drenching of explicit sex, and enough...
A novel chronicles the uninhibited adventures of two interracial gay couples meandering their way through Austin, Texas, and elsewhere.
It all starts out so innocently: the foursome, dreamed up by prolific author Jack (The Mandrakes, 2017, etc.), includes longtime couple Luke Cevennes, an emergency room physician, and “Nubian prince,” university philosophy teacher, and single father Jeremy Kell. Alongside the pair are Jake Marshall, also an ER doctor, and his daring software entrepreneur partner, Cal Broadhearst. All enjoy one another’s company and energetic lifestyles, which contribute to their “ripped” physiques, with the major difference being that Luke and Jeremy prefer the bustle and variety of the city as opposed to Jake’s and Cal’s more placid rural life. The Supreme Court’s landmark same-sex marriage decision paves the way for both couples to plan their nuptials in the Colorado mountains, but a hot air balloon wedding and honeymoon intimacies aren’t the only things on their minds. Chattily narrated by Luke and Jake, the story strays from their marital bliss with the integration of a series of hardcore, graphic sexual situations that veer the book into the gay-erotica arena, complete with oversized genitalia, truck-stop sex, and gritty, provocative language (“Who says the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?”). Their collective escapades move seamlessly from a cabin hideaway in Telluride for Luke and Jeremy to Rome, Georgia, where Jake and Cal vacation, with each man driven by his insatiable libido and easily distracted by the scent of marijuana, the sight of oversized feet, or the smooth seduction of the nearest handsome stranger. Some readers may question how this behavior equates to gay marriage, but Luke seems to speak for the group when declaring, “My ambivalence to the concept of monogamy was well known.” Supporting characters drift in and out of the long-winded narrative periodically, including a pack of voracious bears, but they all take a back seat to the orgies of the fab four. Whether or not readers consider unbridled gay sex palatable or not, Jack remains a consistently engaging storyteller and amply embodies his characters with personality, carnal appeal, and enough opinionated social criticism to make them appealing and realistically drawn.
Definitely not for the timid, this Bacchanalian confection conjoins two gay couples, a drenching of explicit sex, and enough drama and sweat to please fans of the ribald and the raunchy.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9980990-1-9
Page Count: 404
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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