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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE November 20, 1992

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Steam

Entertainment

by Jay B. Laws Alyson Publications, $9.95,

paper.

Reviewed by Timothy Robson

Mysteries and science fiction have become well established as gay fiction genres; gay horror stories in the mode of Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Dean R. Koontz are few. Steam, a 1992 Lambda Literary Award finalist, by Jay B. Laws, is an honorable entry into the field. It is scary and sexy, even though it ultimately bogs down (or does it get lost in the fog which pervades the story?).

The highly-charged and disturbing premise upon which Steam is based is the author's connection of death-by-AIDS, the closing of a San Francisco gay bathhouse by public health authorities because of the epidemic, and gay mens' nostalgia for the '70s "good old days" of sex without fear. The Caverns bathhouse, with its rows and rows of cubicles, steam room, and labyrinthine maze in the form of a cave, becomes the symbol of death possessed of its own evil spirit, who identifies himself as Victor. Are we to believe that AIDS will be the victor, that there is no hiding from it?

The mysterious disappearance of the Caverns' owner, and subsequent disappearances of other men, most HIV-positive and many in the last stages of AIDS, occur as San Francisco's gay male population is suddenly struck by an unexplained resurgence of interest in '70s disco music and

Live from Golgotha

The Gospel According to Gore Vidal Random House, $22.00 hardcover

Reviewed by Timothy Robson

If this were a few hundred years ago Gore Vidal would have been burned at the stake for publishing Live from Golgotha. Truth be told, Vidal probably would have toasted his tootsies much earlier in his career if sixteenth-century Spanish cardinals were in charge. Live from Golgotha is Vidal's latest blasphemy, in which he takes on the whole origins of Christianity as well as corporate America, technology, and "New Age" channeling.

The narrator is Timothy, Bishop of Macedonia, who in A.D. 96 is in his study in downtown Thessalonika recording his version of the gospel of Jesus. He records the work of his mentor Saint Paul--Saint to his buddies, Solly to his business associates. Timothy's work is interrupted by the delivery of a Sony television at the behest of Chester ("Call me Chet') Claypoole, vice president of creative programming at NBC. The TV was to have been a General Electric, manufactured by NBC's parent company, but through a mistake a Sony was delivered instead. Things happen sometimes.

Through a triumph of technology Timothy has a series of visitors, including Chet, who wants to sign Timothy up to be anchor man for the biggest show of all time, a live broadcast of the crucifixion at Golgotha. Among others who channel in are Mary Baker Eddy, Shirley MacLaine, Oral Roberts and his family, two versions of Dr. Francis B.S. Cutler, from Fairleigh Dickinson University, General Electric, and media giant Gulf+ Eastern, Selma Suydam, Jewish princess from Pasadena, and the mysterious Marvin Wasserstein, computer genius. The pressure mounts for Timothy to complete his gospel because a hacker is systematically destroying the tapes containing the traditional story of Jesus' ministry, death, and resurrection.

Timothy spins his tale of Saint's exploits as a song and dance man, a self-hating homosexual Jew, who sets out to change the fundamentally Zionist message of a

fashion. Men start to have odd wet dreams in which they receive the best blow jobs of their lives with incredible, almost inhumanly beautiful men. But when they awake, they find a ticket--"Admit One" on their pillow next to them--a ticket to the Cav-

erns.

Several of the men, David Walker, a gay porn writer, Alex Webster, straight cop, and Bobby, gym queen, are brought together to search for an explanation to the disappearances and the dreams, which become ever more nightmarish, as the whole city becomes enveloped in a thickening fog. Alex becomes one of Victor's victims, but David and Bobby are led to Rachael Black, a clairvoyant and keeper of a crystal with powers to control Victor. The final confrontation and conflagration in the Caverns is worthy of Anne Rice's tumultuous ending to The Witching Hour.

Laws starts out strong, and his initial chapters of sex and death are truly disturbing. But Victor turns out to be a garden variety spook (if with a specialized taste for HIV-positive gay men), and the author does not sustain the sense of terror, opting instead for scenes of escalating graphic violence. After a while, the steam and smelly slime become predictable, as is the ending. Nonetheless, Steam is notable for its combination of fantasy and literary horror with our contemporary real life horror.

four-hundred pound Jesus, King of the Jews and heir to David's throne. Saint is an expert at raising funds for the Jerusalem Christians, led by James, Jesus' kid brother. Timothy is entrusted with the Holy Rolodex containing all the best donors. Despite being basically heterosexual, Timothy is bedmate to Saint, as well as a variety of other individuals, female and male, including Emperor Nero, who is so entranced by Timothy that he wants to give him a sex change and then marry him. In Rome they also meet The Rock, one of the twelve apostles, but not one of Saint's fans. Through a slip-up on the part of his lawyer, Saint is crucified in Rome.

The broadcast from Golgotha takes place, the Zionist plot which undermines Pauline Christianity and threatens a nuclear holocaust in the year 2001 is foiled, and the Hacker is stopped. Timothy completes his gospel, to be hidden in the cathedral and discovered in the late twentieth century.

Only Gore Vidal could carry off such a brilliant romp through history and religion. Nothing escapes his satiric pen. Besides his encyclopedic knowledge of ancient history, Vidal is clearly aware of the controversial research of the last fifteen years into early Christian history, in which political extremist Jesus is portrayed as desiring to set himself up as a legitimate pretender to the Jewish throne. Many liberal scholars now believe that Christianity as we know it today can be traced to St. Paul, who distorted Jesus' teachings for his own purposes. A recent book by Episcopal bishop James Spong claims that Paul was a selfrepressed homosexual, and that Paul's ravings against sins of the flesh are the result of his own self-guilt.

Live from Golgotha, with something to offend everyone--particularly fundamentalist Christians--is hilarious, and will make you smile the next time you read one of those later books of the New Testament. Who knows what kind of world we might live in if Zionist Jesus had succeeded in his plot against Rome and Paul had been a minor figure in the Christian story.