The Language of Roses – Heather Rose Jones (Queen of Swords Press)

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Queen of Swords Press

Sometimes, we as authors–and even as an audience–find ourselves looking for a more complicated plot when dealing with classic myths and legends everyone knows. We burden a story beyond belief and wonder what we saw in it in the first place. So, it’s a real pleasure to find one of those classics stripped back and tweaked just enough for queer consumption. Moreover, it’s done in just over two hundred pages (this is the third in Queen of Swords Press’s mini-series), and it’s as charming and mysterious as you could possibly ask for.

Anton, a merchant, plucks a rose as he flees the property of Philippe, a fay Beast, and his sister, Grace, involving himself and one of his three daughters in a curse put on Philippe and Grace by a nearby fairy Peronelle, who is watching the drama unfold. Anton must go back home and select one of his three daughters to return to Philippe, fall in love with him, and take her place as mistress of the household. Practical Alys gets the nod, but she can’t fall in love with a Beast. She’s never fallen in love with anyone. Almost, that is. And that turning is where we leave you wondering where it goes.

The beauty and the beast isn’t one of my favorite classic legends, but Heather Rose Jones’s enthusiasm for the material lifts this up into interesting and novel (to me, anyway) territory, and I thoroughly enjoyed her take on it. It winks at queerness, but what really puts this over for me is the combination of wide-eyed wonder and stoic practicality with which Alys reacts to her situation.

Jones’s prose has a light, lyrical touch perfectly suited for this story and subject. I do wish it was longer, but I also admire a writer who knows when she needs to bring things to a close. That shows a much better sense of pacing than dragging things out with false endings and epilogues galore.

So, if you’re not overly familiar with the myth–and most especially if you are–you need to give this fresh take a try. There’s much to like in Jones’s stylized forest. Just watch the briars.

JW

© 2022 Jerry L. Wheeler

The Grand Sex Tour Murders – Daniel M. Jaffe (Rattling Good Yarns Press)

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Rattling Good Yarns Press

I’m a big fan of Jaffe’s work. From the serious grief of The Limits of Pleasure to a young Jewish boy’s sexual awakening in Yeled Tov to his last collection of short stories, Foreign Affairs, you never know quite what you’re going to get, and I love that. I’m not keen on authors who write the same book over and over but with different characters, and although Jaffe has themes to which he returns–primarily the intersection of gay and Jewish identities, the depth and breadth of his stories are admirable. And he’s pulled out all the stops for the hysterical and heartfelt The Grand Sex Tour Murders.

Paulie Hahnemann has a plan that will set him and his partner up for life. A sex tour of bathhouses in European capitals complete with eight hot contestants in a sort of gambler’s reality TV show livestreamed from the bathhouses. Men can bet on their favorite studs while said studs plow their way through the population of Europe, racking up the sex points with $250,000 on the line. The only catch is the serial killer that’s taking the boys out capital by capital. But Paulie even has a plan to make that work to his advantage. Until it doesn’t anymore.

Jaffe is clearly having a ball here. He’s coming at it from a number of viewpoints: organizer Paulie, the serial killer, hidden camera transcripts from the boys in their hotel rooms–and as he’s a master at voice, you don’t need a chapter marker to tell you whose head you’re in. Paulie is sort of a schlub, but great at the planning thing, the serial killer is an effete snob, and the boys are…well, naive. Jaffe pokes fun at reality TV at the same time he’s paying homage to the now-dying bathhouse (there were three in Denver before COVID–now, there are none), and the result is a lovely wake. It’s witty and worldly; domestic, yet oh so continental.

But of all the voices here, I can just about guarantee the serial killer’s will stick with you the most. He’s pompous and arrogant, yet always brought down to the lowest common denominator by his lust for blood. He’s chillingly matter-of-fact, which is what makes him so wonderfully evil and gives the book those moments where the tongue-in-cheek aspects fall away and give us a bald, brave look at psychosis in action. The murders themselves aren’t as lurid as they are diabolically purposeful. And the contrast between that and the comic elements are what gives this book layers.

And, of course, such an intelligent, fascinating book must be banned. So, as the publisher informs us, Facebook has banned its sale on their Facebook page, and it’s also been banned by a service that buys books for libraries. My fear is that this is only the beginning rather than an isolated incident. In either case, it’s a good idea to buy directly from the publisher’s link above.

Jaffe has come up with yet another winner, leaving you wondering what genre he’s going to write in next. No matter what it is, I’m in. Banned or not. Highly recommended!

JW

© 2022 Jerry L. Wheeler

The End of Her: Racing Against Alzheimer’s to Solve a Murder – Wayne Hoffman (Heliotrope Books)

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Heliotrope Books

I’ve been lucky–if one could call it luck–with the demise of my loved ones. My late partner had a mercifully short four month battle with lung cancer before he succumbed, and my mother’s struggle with breast cancer and lymphoma only took a year and a half, but watching their declines was heartbreaking. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been to watch the years of deterioriation Wayne Hoffman experienced with the death of his mother, Susan. Being a writer, however, he has forged that pain into art and shared it with us all. That’s just what we do. And the end product is a truly moving story accompanied by an engaging mystery.

In many ways, Susan reminds me of my own mother–a larger-than-life storyteller who drew all the attention and focus whenever she walked into a room. Weight problem? Check (inherited by me–also check). Strong sense of fair play and social justice? Check. Never afraid to speak her mind? Check and double check. The difference is that my mother’s mind was pretty much intact right up until the end, with the addition of a gallows humor she’d never shown before. I didn’t have to watch her lose parts of herself or become unsure and anxious for no good reason. She always remembered who I was, and she was able to pass on the family stories to me in excruciating detail.

Before Susan began to experience her losses, she was also the repository of family lore and legends, one of which being that her grandmother–Hoffman’s great-grandmother–was shot and killed one winter on the front porch of her home by a sniper while she was nursing a newborn. After some years of hearing this story, Hoffman has some serious questions–like why was she nursing a newborn on the front porch in the winter? The story began to fall apart after some thought, so Hoffman decided to track down the truth.

While this truth isn’t stranger than Susan’s fiction, it’s certainly different. In fact, it made headlines in newspapers all over Canada in 1913. Hoffman’s great-grandmother was indeed shot and killed, but not on the front porch. Rather, it was at point blank range in her bedroom as she slept, one of her children sleeping with her (her husband was on a business trip). What follows is an interesting whodunit that takes Hoffman from one end of Canada to the other in his search to discover his great-grandmother’s killer.

Hoffman’s mother’s decline and his investigation of the shooting are two of three threads which form Hoffman’s narrative. The last is an examination of the Jewish diaspora in Canada during the early part of the twentieth century, including migration patterns. Far from being a dry, numbers-ridden history, Hoffman brings it to life as he travels from place to place, finding extended family in almost every city. He deftly balances all three of these elements, never losing his momentum. The result is a fascinating mix.

But no matter what stage his investigation is at or where his digressions about migration take him, he’s never far from his mother’s decline. As you’d expect, it pervades his life and that of his local and extended family. It’s not a story for the faint of heart, but it’s certainly relatable to anyone who’s gone through it. And even if you haven’t, you’ll understand how he feels.

JW

© 2022 Jerry L. Wheeler

Missing From the Village: The Story of Serial Killer Bruce McArthur, the Search for Justice, and the System That Failed Toronto’s Queer Community – Justin Ling (Penguin Canada)

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Penguin/Random House Canada

Missing From the Village is our history told through the lens of true crime. Regardless where this book gets shelved, it’s importance cannot be overstated: finally, our story is told by one of our own, journalist Justin Ling (VICE, The Guardian).  The arrest of serial killer Bruce McArthur in 2018 captivated the world, his next potential victim drugged and bound in the bedroom when police arrived. Such murderers are the stuff of the 70s and 80s—a nearly extinct breed now mythologized in a variety of Netflix docuseries. It seemed unfathomable to many that a predator could still hunt undetected in such a sizable, sophisticated city. Unfathomable to everyone except the queer residents of Toronto’s gay village, who had spent years desperately trying to draw attention to the men who had gone missing, men who bore striking resemblances to one another.

Missing From the Village is the story of community response in the face of indifference from the police, one borne of historic contempt for its gay citizens. Significantly, it is the story of the victims, many of them marginalized, all of them complex individuals with families and friends and lovers, nearly all men of color from semi-closeted backgrounds that often led to their absence going unnoticed, though brave allies and advocates kept the fire burning, striving for answers, rallying the community. What this book is not about is Bruce McArthur. While much is revealed about his background and murderous methodologies (that more than one victim was his fuck buddy for years before succumbing to McArthur’s deadly instincts is beyond chilling), he remains an enigma, an unknowable voracious force. A heterosexual author would likely have magnified such an enigma in ways salacious and grotesque. However, Ling’s work here is one of advocacy: by holding the police and press responsible he documents decades-long institutional discrimination. Friends and family are interviewed, humanizing victims that are often relegated to statistical body counts in lesser books. The decision to forego the lurid photos so typical of the genre is not only commendable, but Lochlan Donald’s lovingly rendered black and while illustrations of these men act as fitting tributes, and proof that this book serves a higher purpose.

Friends, we’re getting there. More and more, we tell our own stories, from David McConnell’s American Honor Killings; Desire and Rage Among Men to James Polchin’s Indecent Advances: A Hidden History of True Crime and Prejudice Before Stonewall, we are recording our histories and, by naming the dark forces that put many of us at risk, Ling helps move the needle in the right direction. Speaking of names:

Abdulbasir Faizi

Skandaraj Navaratnam

Majeed Kayhan

Soroush Mahmudi

Dean Lisowick

Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam

Selim Esen

Andrew Kinsman    

These men were all killed between 2010 and 2017. Yet Bruce McArthur was born in 1951 and though married, lived near the gay village in the 70s. There’s speculation that he was active much earlier, when the fight for equality was nascent and our lives much less valuable and visible. Missing In the Village is a searing blueprint of accountability; hopefully lists like the above will be a thing of the past.    

Reviewed by Tom Cardamone, editor of Crashing Cathedrals: Edmund White by the Book, and the author of the Lambda Literary Award-winning speculative novella Green Thumb as well as the erotic fantasy The Lurid Sea and other works of fiction, including two short story collections. Additionally, he has edited The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered and co-edited Fever Spores: The Queer Reclamation of William S. Burroughs.

The Language of Light – Kathleen Brady (Bywater Books)

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Bywater Books

One of the reasons I’ve always been a reader is that I’ve always been interested in how people other than myself live, and books are the most convenient way to learn that. But it’s not just the people, it’s the culture, and in addition to being a crackerjack romance, Kathleen Brady’s The Language of Light gives some excellent insights into both.

Lu McLean leaves her native Los Angeles to study Mandarin Chinese at the Beijing Language Institute, her eye on a United Nations translating job. That, however, is before she runs into Ming Cao Wei, a Chinese teacher at the institute. As Lu has just left a ten year relationship, she has absolutely no intention of becoming involved with anyone, including Ming–which is, of course, exactly what happens. But Ming is bound by custom, tradition, and family. She can’t leave, and due to the increasingly iffy political scene, Lu can’t stay. But neither can she bear to part with Ming.

Brady does an admirable job of portraying the culturally stifling attitude and making sure her readers understand the regimentation of a process-oriented life where tickets and permissions are required for the most innocuous of pastimes and to even be seen in the presence of anti-authoritarian activities is cause for being detained by the police. Brady suffuses this love story with a dark overlay of fear and dread for what might happen if someone finds out.

Missteps are bound to occur in an atmosphere this charged with danger, and Lu often finds herself stepping over lines she’s not even aware exist. Ming, for her part, also finds coping with Lu’s American “full speed ahead” attitude difficult and also makes mistakes. This friction provides a terrific element of combustibility in their relationship and adds to the tension already inherent in the situation. Their time together is both precious and prickly, an interesting combination that makes their scenes pop.

The oasis here is Lu’s Australian co-worker, Elizabeth, who provides some counterpoint to Ming. She and Lu have some very important scenes together that provide relief not only from the cultural situation but from Lu’s at times perilous relationship with Ming. We breathe easier when Elizabeth is in the picture, but she’s by no means a minor character. She’s as fully integrated into the plot as Lu and Ming.

The Language of Light is a solid, enjoyable romance that doubles as an excellent portrait of the repressive and sometimes oppressive Chinese culture in the 1980s. Its characters are rich and well-drawn. Luckily (as you’ll see in the back of the book), the story continues in the forthcoming Light Is To Darkness.

JW

© 2022 Jerry L. Wheeler