FEBRUARY 21, 1997
GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE
23
BOOKS
A good men's story is easy to find in this volume
Men on Men 6
Edited by David Bergman Plume/Penguin,$11.95 trade paper
Reviewed by Bob Boone
"All that this collection represents is the twenty best gay short stories I have read in the last two years," states David Bergman in his introduction to Men on Men 6.
J.E. Robinson
The editor of the Men on Men series since 1992, Bergman received some 900 stories to be considered for the sixth edition. Initially narrow-
ing it down
to forty-five or so of his favorite stories, he then whittled it down to twenty by choosing what he considered to be the best and the most representative of the diverse gay community.
It is the varying backgrounds and perspectives of the chosen authors and their stories that served to maintain the quality and enthusiasm of this collection. Up to and including the twentieth story in the book, each story proves fresh and interesting, unlike any of the stories included before it.
Bergman proclaims, “Over and over again, I found the stories that most interested me, excited me, and stayed with me were those stories that showed how men negotiated differences of race, ethnicity, and class."
In his first published work of fiction, "Black and Blue," Sandip Roy exposes some ironic complexities of the issues of race and prejudice. He writes from the perspective of a young Indian man, Sanjay, who is not usually attracted to black men and whose family is prejudiced against blacks. When Sanjay falls for an African American man with blue eyes, "Black and Blue" cleverly evokes the humiliation that comes in the selfrealization of personal prejudice.
In the rich and flowing "Waiting on Eurydice," J.E. Robinson explores one boy's coming of ge and sexual awakening in the South in the early 1980s. In the air of a hot and humid day, the story unfolds lazily, and in its sloth captures the conflicting expectations that confront the boy. Explaining that the story took 12 years to complete, Robinson warns the reader, "Don't blink, you might miss something."
In a coming-of-age story with a different climate, David Ebershoff effectively cap-
tures the alternating tension and near giddiness of a young man who discovers someone else in his immediate world who is gay. Set in middle-class southern California suburbia, "Trespass" follows Mitch as he nervously abandons his childish games and early adolescent crushes and begins to consider what life as a gay adult may be like.
Wayne Scott offers a coming-of-age story like no other in "House of Differences." A boy entering adolescence, Adrian lives with his mother in an apartment house known by neighbors as the Lesbian Rage building, after a graffito painted on its wall. Abandoned by his father and feeling isolated in his relationship with his mother, Adrian craves the refuge he sees in the seeming genderlessness of a neighborhood transsexual.
In telling the story of three men's annual pilgrimage to Provincetown, William J. Mann's "Tricks of the Trade" confronts a number of issues including aging, relationships, and AIDS. It is the book's most evident inclusion of AIDS.
According to Bergman, AIDS "forms the background for how we live now rather than the foreground it once occupied."
A handful of the stories create an atmosphere that can be rather disturbing, and yet the reader is still drawn in by the power of the characters. Almost immediately establishing a mood of being out of control, "Crack" offers the details of a man's tricking with a former porn star hooked on the illicit drug. Another story, "Lawnboy," uncomfortably chronicles a middle-aged man's seduction of a teenage neighbor boy, who finds no one besides that man to really pay attention to him.
Ohio-born author James Purdy contributes a dark yet enticing fairy tale which includes nothing explicitly gay. “The White Blackbird" is instead an uneasy fantasy of companionship, sharing secrets, and resisting.
The collection ends with its shortest story, "The Most Obvious Place," by Richard C. Zimler. In two pages of loss, longing, and hope, it is the years-long reaction to the death of an older brother.
In the introduction to Men on Men 6, which unlike many introductions deserves not to be overlooked, Bergman describes his process of collecting stories, starting with him poring over each submission as he sprawls on his blue velveteen couch. His enthusiasm for these stories and for compiling the best possible ones is evident in both the introduction and in the resulting book. It allows him to write confidently and correctly that, "Consequently, these stories aren't just great stories for gay readers; they are powerful stories for anyone interested in fine writing and serious fiction."
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