January 4, 2008
GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 9
eveningsout
A dark, creepy tale of a past that won't be forgotten
The Dust of Wonderland by Lee Thomas
Alyson, $24.95 hardcover Reviewed by Terri Schlichenmeyer
So many times in life, one leaves a place to which one will never return.
Maybe it was someplace outgrown, and leaving was like shedding a three-ton yoke. Or perhaps it was somewhere you thought you'd visit again, but you never got around to going back. Wherever it was, your footprints never graced the locale again.
Ken Nicholson never wanted to return to
New Orleans. But in The Dust of Wonderland by Lee Thomas, Ken learns that his son is in a hospital in the Big Easy. Scared and worried, Ken rushes back to a city he never wanted to revisit.
Life was supposed to be good for Bobby. He'd recently gotten engaged to a woman that Ken had never met, but the wedding would now be postponed. Bobby was in a coma, the victim of a random attack by a stranger. His fiancée, Vicki Bach, called 91-1 then disappeared, leaving behind a disconnected phone number, the address of an abandoned mansion, and names of fake relatives.
PAUL MICHAUD/SHOWTIME
But Ken knows the significance of the address and the faux name. Back when he was single, before he married and lived a lie, he engaged in a hedonistic life of partying, drinking,
drugs, and nameless lovers in the gay demimonde of the French Quarter. Ken would and diddo almost anything back then.
Also back then, there was a club that
everybody called Wonderland, hidden in the open in an old mansion. Opulence, drugs, and pretty boys were abundant there, but after an unspeakably gruesome multiple murder thirty years ago, the mansion was left abandoned.
Ken had been
at the club the
night of the mur-
ders and the man-
THE
Da
left Wonderland, even as Travis promised that he could never leave.
So who is Vicki Bach and how did she get close to Ken and his family without anyone seeing her malicious intent? Does
THOMA
the moldering ruin of Wonderland hold the key to Ken's dreams and visions?
"Tell me a story," whispers a female voice in
Ken's ear. But this
story is one he'd
just as soon forget.
Like tiny dust motes in your grandma's parlor, author Lee Thomas floats and swirls clues around in this edgy, eerie novel. You know in the first chapter that Vicki Bach has a hand in what's happening to Ken, but you can't fathom why or how until the bang ending that will catch you unsuspecting. Even if you think you've got the solution nailed, you don't.
sion was the address that Vicki Bach gave slam Bobby.
"Tell me a story," Travis Brugier, the owner of Wonderland, had said on so many nights long ago. Travis "owned" Ken and bestowed privilege upon the boy. Because of his status, Ken thought Travis loved him, but when he found out that Travis was incapable of love, Ken
-
Do you relish stories that make your skin crawl? Then this is one to find. "The Dust of Wonderland" is dark, chilly, and a creepy wonder of a novel, one you won't want to leave unfinished. ✓
Danieta Sea as Max Sweeney
Laughter
Continued from facing page
Rounding out the dramatis personae, Max has decided that he wants to do a podcast for Alice's OurChart website, talking about his issues as a transman. Alice is not so sure, repeating her mantra that it's a site for lesbians.
The whole thing sounds like the show is biting the hand that it feeds. It's obviously a reference to the blowup over transgender inclusion in ENDA that made the Human Rights Campaign look so bad last fall-and HRC is hosting The L Word première parties around the country.
Actually, it will be more interesting to see how they finally resolve the issue of trans inclusion on the show. They might do a quick-fix sort of thing, with a quick, “Oh, now I understand!" flash of comprehension that would be completely untrue to life but typical of television.
SOCHE
Oh, and Max has attracted the eye of Tom, Jody's sign language interpreter, who desperately wants a boyfriend and thinks Max is the bee's knees. It's like they always say, all the cute boys are transmen.
The humor that was so evident in Season 4 is almost certainly back this season, but the writers are doing a decent job of keeping the drama going as well. The show seems always to be on the verge of jumping the shark, only to keep inching back from that precipice. Nip/Tuck on FX, the show that brought in Portia DiRossi to spice things up and give the show a Sapphic cache, jumped the shark so long ago that each episode gets more and more ludicrous in trying to outdo the previous week.
The L Word, however, keeps much of its drama manageable, using the more outrageous moments as a natural exit for outgoing characters.
Anyway, the show returns for Round 5 on Sunday, January 6 at 9 pm on Showtime, which is available as a pay channel on all cable and satellite systems.
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