24 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE APRIL 19, 1996

BOOKS

Brown's latest novel betrays the 'Rubyfruit' promise

Riding Shotgun

by Rita Mae Brown Bantam Books, $22.95

Reviewed by Tamara Murphy

My first exposure to the work of Rita Mae Brown came at age 17. Not yet out, I was the youngest member of a residential summer

Rita Mae Brown

theater company living in paradise on the outer banks of North Carolina. Rubyfruit Jungle, Brown's story of growing up and coming out in rural Pennsylvania, was loaned to me by a much older, lesbian member of the cast.

I carried it everywhere, stealing furtive glances whenever I could get away from the overly-protective and adamantly straight Birmingham belle with whom I shared a

room.

I couldn't get enough of that story, and the frightening self-recognition I was experiencing was all the more agonizing for coming in three-page spurts.

Three years later, in my sophomore year in college, that little voice erupted into a roar; and in honor of my coming out, I hunted down a copy of Rubyfruit Jungle. By now, I've devoured it, savored it, celebrated it, and wallowed in it more times than I can count.

The elements that have made that story so timeless to me are the same ones I've looked for in Brown's writing over and over again.

Unfortunately, the qualities that have made me rush to the bookstore on the first release of every new Rita Mac Brown nove are the very ones her latest writing seems lack.

Put simply, Riding Shotgun lacks punch. This is a book that would be right at home in a Doubleday Book Club special offer. “Join now, and choose any four books for 99 cents.” As an added bonus, you'd get a charming polyester tote and a special report entitled “Ten Quick Dishes Even Your Mother-in-Law Will Love."

For some, this might be considered a mark of success, but I've come to expect more from Rita Mac. This is a book that takes no risks, unless a you consider a lesbian author writing the most yawningly mainstream of novels risky.

Riding Shotgun's characters are conveniently privileged, and dreadfully predictable. Everyone has been born of, or married into, Virginia's finest families. Your assorted

Help wanted.

All positions, all shifts. Please apply in person, or call (216) 961-2727 for an appointment.

THE CLUB

1448 W32 ST

CLEVELAND 216.961.2727

lot of martini lushes and prescription pill poppers, jockeying for social position or to get in the pants of someone else's wife. The one hardworking woman who has managed to rise above her silver spoon to become an enlightened liberal is doubly betrayed when she discovers her beloved sister had an affair with her now-dead philandering husband. Stop me if there's anything you haven't seen in the latest network miniseries.

Even Brown's side-step into time travel lacks real conflict or conviction, as does the whisper of "deviant" sexuality, manifested in a high school girl determined to take her

girlfriend to the school dance. I do not feel for these characters. A quintessentrai “women's " novel in the most patriarchal of veins, this is the kind of story devised to give bored house wives a vicarious thrill and keep them thank ful for "family values."

I will remember Riding Shotgun the next time it occurs to me to hope for more mainstream acceptance of lesbian-gay-bisexual artists, and I will hope instead that the artists have the strength to maintain the integrity of their voice in the midst of such acceptance. I will be careful what I wish for.

Bookstore's performance night yields a rich anthology

Sundays at Seven

Choice Words from A Different Light's Gay Writer's Series Edited by Rondo Mieczkowski Compiled by James Carroll Pickett Androgyny Books

Reviewed by Steve Adams

The short story, the poem, and the performance piece are alive and well in Sundays at Seven, an anthology written by gay writers. The book is like a good dinner party. The reader has the opportunity to meet someone new, delve into the life of an interesting person, learn something, be entertained, be amused, and be moved.

Sundays at Seven takes its name from the performance hour of A Different Light Bookstore in Los Angeles. On the third Sunday of the month at 7 pm from 1987 to 1992, new writers read from their works in the bookstore. It was a time for authors to explore their talent, find their voices, hone their art, and experiment.

This 144-page anthology is the work of many of those writers. The list of authors reads like a Who's Who of American letters. It includes Paul Monette, Michael Lassell, Michael Nava, James Carroll Pickett, Larry Duplechan, Malcolm Boyd, Steven Corbin, Bernard Cooper, Mark Thompson, and Stuart Timmons. And the list goes on.

James Carroll Pickett planned and compiled the stories and poems in Sundays at Seven. Unfortunately, he died from complications of AIDS before he could complete the book. Rondo Mieczkowski compiled the editing.

Pieces of non-fiction, pectry and action give the reader a sample of the run content of the anthology. Bernard Cooper's nenti. tion piece. “¡01 Ways to Cook Hamburger. is the first-person telling of becoming aware of one's gayness. Cooper writes about Theresa Sanchez, who sat behind him in ninth grade algebra and one day asked him. “Are you a fag?" Her question opened a door to sexual awareness. Cooper tells the opening of that door in an entertaining manner

Malcolm Boyd wrote a popular book Pe You Running With Me. Jesus' Boyd contributed a four-page poem, "Kiss," to this anthol ogy. In this poem, Boyd captures male-male lovemaking through sensuous references to touch and scent. For example. "Mars and I sleep together/ he uses bay rum/ on his pubic hair and go down on it with my nose." This is the perfect poem to be read aloud to your lover.

Peter Cashorali's short story, “The Man Who Came Back From the Dead,” is about a man who dies and goes to another world Sent back to find one person who has not forgotten him, he sits up in his casket and finds one friend still weeping. As the result ot finding one person who still weeps for hip the dead man is given six weeks among the living. "Everyone, the friends, the lovers, the whole family, decided to feast him for the six weeks he'd be with them now is the time to bring him his favorite dish... buy him new shirt... tell him how good his hair looks when he steps out of the shower, now is the time."

Now is also the time to give a friend, or perhaps, yourself a copy of Sundays at Seven

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED...

...it will be danced to.

SATURDAY MAY 4

6424 DETROIT (BRILLO PAD)

10PM 2:30AM