GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

AUGUST 14, 1998

Evenings Out

Gym boys, vampires and coming tales make late-summer book list

by Kaizaad Kotwal

The hazy, lazy, crazy days of summer are well under way and in a while, the hot humid air will give way to cool crisp breezes and colorfully falling leaves. Whether tanning on a beach or curling up by a fire, a good book is always a great idea.

Several years ago, books by gay and lesbian authors, written specifically for queer audiences were few and far between. What joy then to have a plethora of choices from which to construct a list of books to read for the rest of the summer and into the fall.

Doug Guinan has definitely given us one of the most fun and side-splitting books of the year in California Screaming (Simon and Schuster, $23.00). In his debut novel, Guinan paints a vivid and satirical portrait of the plastic world of gay muscle gods and the even more synthetic world of Hollywood. When the two collide, Guinan brings to life a blistering love affair of convenience and mutual exploitation between a Hollywood hustler with a body to die for and a Hollywood mogul with wealth and possessions worth killing for.

Guinan is unrelenting in his totally unsympathetic portrait of greed, gall and gayness in Los Angeles. What Michael Douglas's film Wall Street was to the 1980s inside traders, California Screaming is to the 1990s gym clones. Guinan's book is filled with astute and witty observations such as, “A cramped hallway linen closet contained still more: volumizers, texturizers, body boosters, hydroglazes, sunless tanning creams, unguents, palliatives, tinctures, exfoliants... and hundreds of Elizabeth Arden ceramide capsules. Like many youngish people in L.A., they could not imagine buying a house, but a forty dollar bottle of hair conditioner did not seem unreasonable. It seemed, in fact, absolutely right."

While his writing is sharp and insightful, Guinan is a master observer of human behavior and social norms and conventions. The book is a laugh riot but it will also leave you somewhat depressed in its dead-on accuracy about the shallowness and total depravity found in that oxymoron fondly nicknamed the City of Angels.

At times, Guinan's characters and situations ring so true that one cannot but help wonder how he knows so much so well.

P. P Hartnett knows his subject matter even better. In order to write Call Me (St. Martin's Press, $11.95) Hartnett placed several personal ads in several London gay publications for a fictitious character called Bike Boy. Hartnett met with 200 of the respondents and the result is a savage book about the underbelly of sex and the gay world.

call me

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Hartnett chooses to focus on the machinations and madness of the world of personal ads. If Guinan is adept at creating incisive

satire and an intriguing menagerie of personalities, Hartnett's gift is in pushing the envelope of our own self-examinations and our willingness to admit and acknowledge our most lurid fantasies and destructive behaviors. Hartnett's book is not for the squeamish and faint of heart. His writing is as compelling as Guinan's and in his descriptions of sexually compulsive behavior, Hartnett manages to addict the reader to keep turning the pages as we become willing voyeurs into the world of obsession, false identities and the entire gamut of sexual behaviors.

Misadventures in the (213) by Dennis Hensley (Rob Weisbach Books, $24.00) tells the tale of a struggling screenwriter and his celebrity-hound friends, all trying to make it in showbiz. Tinseltown-area code 213— is given a grand skewering as Craig, the screenwriter, and his friends harass Alicia Silverstone with stories of watermelon-loving porn stars as they auction off Andrew Shue's chicken wing and Heather Locklear's lip prints for charity.

Hensley started writing Misadventures as a column for Detour magazine. Two and a half years later, the results culminated in a full-length novel that is very funny, and very bitchy all at once. Hensley, during an interview said, "it's about life on the fringe of

show business. Its major themes are longing, friendship and the significance of B-level celebrity sightings." If

all this tinseltown tawdriness is not your cup of tea, then Michael Cart

is a writer to pay attention to. In My Father's Scar (St. Martin's Press, $

11.95), Cart tells the coming of age tale of Andy Logan, a young boy who must confront and eventually accept his difference as a gay person. Cart's genius is in capturing the young narrator's voice with such intricate detail and poignant compassion. Andy Logan guides us through his past, his family and Evan, an older boy whom he idolizes and falls in love with.

My Father's Scar is warm, tender and a delicate blend of humor and pathos. Andy is a hero who will steal your heart and evoke a wide range of emotions as you sojourn with him from childhood to adolescence. My Father's Scar, albeit darker in parts, is by far one of the most refreshing and detailed coming of age stories to be writ-

ten in a long while. Cart's gift to his readers is the poetry and compassion with which he brings to, life people, places and events.

Away from the pastoral and lyrical realism of Cart's

story is Desmond: A Novel About Love and the Modern Vampire by Ulysses Grant Dietz (Alyson Publications,

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1998). Dietz's novel is part vampire mythology and part romantic thriller. Dietz's protagonist is Desmond Beckwith, a tormented vampire who defies conventional vampire lore as he walks in daylight and doesn't kill to stay alive. Desmond's humanity is unveiled and unearthed by Tony Chapman, an unemployed museum curator. Their relationship sets in motion a frantic and frenzied timetravel into the past where Desmond excavates fossilized memories and tries to transform darkness into light.

Doug Guinan

On the non-fiction front there are some interesting picks as well. Patrick Price's Husband Hunting Made Easy and Other Miracles for the Modern Gay Man (St. Martin's Press, $12.95) and C. E. Crimmins and Tom O'Leary's The Gay Man's Guide to Heterosexuality (St. Martin's Press, $10.95) are two very funny guides filled with outrageous quizzes, zany tips and fun illustrations.

Crimmins, who regaled her audiences in Newt Gingrich's Bedtime Stories for Orphans, and playwright O'Leary are part of the "Institute for Heterosexual Studies." Some

Gay Man's Guide to Heterosexuality

of the questions about heterosexuals they answer are: "What are they carrying around in all those minivans? Why are they afraid of bright colors? Why are they so messy? and "How do you know when you are in one of their neighborhoods?" Tongue-in-cheek, the "Institute," through this book, "hopes to create a better understanding of heterosexuals, and in doing so, to help everyone deal calmly, confidently, and rationally

with these people. Remember, once we understand heterosexuals, we need not fear them."

On the more scholarly front is an extremely important book edited by Lawrence D. Mass titled We Must Love One Another or Die: The Life and Legacies of Larry Kramer (St. Martin's Press, $29.95). This book is a collection of essays by 23 writers who collectively explore and reflect upon Kramer's life, as one of the most relevant, revered and radical activists of the modern gay movement. Kramer, a writer, cofounder of the Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York and founder of ACT UP, has made his presence felt in a vibrant way over the last three decades. While the book explores the multi-faceted life and work of Kramer, it is also forced to reckon with and ponder many of the central issues that the gay liberation movement has been about. Some of the writers featured in the collection include Tony Kushner, John Clum, Andrew Holleran, Michelangelo Signorile and Maxine Wolfe.

So before you run off to the beach for the last few weeks of summer or as you begin to ponder the changing colors of the leaves, run down to your bookstore and ensure yourself hours of great reading. ✔