Lake | Drive – Joe Baumann (Queer Space/Rebel Satori Press)

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Queer Space/Rebel Satori Press

One hot summer day, fourteen people–the owner, bartender, three line cooks, salad maker, dishwasher, and seven servers of a supper club in a sleepy college town in northern Missouri–wake up to a changed world: people everywhere, from the President of the US to major celebrities to random citizens have all disappeared, and many have been replaced by (to them) strangers. Moreover, as far as the entire world is concerned, nothing is amiss; only the fourteen employees of the supper club Lake | Drive remember any of the missing people or the world as it was before the mass disappearances. Eventually, over the course of the summer, as they learn to navigate their new reality, the staff discover that they each can return to one person and one person only their memories of before.

What begins like a Twilight Zone episode or Stephen King novel (but without the sinister overtones) is the central premise of Lake | Drive by Joe Baumann. In fact, the implication throughout the novel is that the world has improved as a result of this reset (although unnamed, this is especially true of the presidential replacement; nevertheless, some characters comment wryly that there really is no significant change). On a personal level, Wendy, one of the cooks at Lake | Drive, comes to realize that her mother is happy, as a result of the disappearance of her boyfriend. However, not everyone’s personal situation has (obviously) improved: Glenn, the owner, wakes up to discover that his wife is among the missing. Probably fortunately for him, she is not replaced by a stranger; nevertheless, except for the Lake | Drive staff, no one remembers her, and there is no trace, material or digital, of her. As a result, he ends up taking a sabbatical from the restaurant. Glenn is the only character to lose a close family member, although Timothie, one of the servers, wakes up the morning of the change to discover that his roommate, Flower, has disappeared without a trace. (In one of the most interesting twists of the novel she does, however, return just as completely, with no memory of being “gone.”)

Although there is some initial confusion as a result of this world-changing event, the staff of Lake | Drive prove surprisingly resilient, adapting to the new world pretty quickly; most of the novel is spent not with them coming to terms with all the changes, but rather deciding on the single person (if any!) they will return memories to, and the ramifications of their decision. Satiya, the dessert maker, for example, quickly learns that returning her mother’s memory to her is a mixed blessing: every person that she learns is now missing, every person who actually is a “replacement” for someone she knew–maybe for years!–is a jolt to her, and the only one she can confide in is Satiya. (Again, returning to the example of the replaced president above, if the former president had been replaced as though he had never been, would you want to remember that?)

Baumann has crafted a compulsive page-turner of a novel, one that I had to finish in a single sitting. Although I did eventually learn Who? was responsible for and How? the central mystery occurred, what really gripped me was What would these characters do in their strange (and I think, better) new world? Not to give away the ending, but as it turned out, they became, I think, better people.

Reviewed by Keith John Glaeske

New Releases for January

From Bywater Books:

No Shelter But the Stars – Virginia Black

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From Bold Strokes Books:

Dreamer – Kris Bryant

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Appalachian Awakening – Nance Sparks

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The Secret Duchess – Jane Walsh

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Of Auras and Shadows – Jennifer Karter

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All Things Beautiful – Alaina Erdell

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Winter’s Spell – Ursula Klein

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Not Just Friends – Jordan Meadows

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Head Over Heelflip – Sander Santiago

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Eyes On Her – Eden Darry

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Lost in the Wild – Kadyan

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Letters from Sarah – Joy Argento

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My Fair Brady – Brian D. Kennedy (HarperCollins)

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HarperCollins

Can a high school theater superstar turn an awkward loner into the stylish, confident gay boy he was meant to be? Such is the appealing premise of Brian D. Kennedy’s modern YA reboot of Pygmalion, and despite the challenges of working with a literary classic that rings socially problematic to the modern ear, Kennedy’s queer interpretation is a delightful teen drama that captures the high school theater world with authority, balance, and a lot of heart.

Wade Westmore is the Pygmalion, or Henry Higgins of the story. He’s a B.M.O.C. at suburban Minnesota’s Monroe Academy, which, like many private, middle-class high schools nowadays, has come around to embrace LGBTQ+ teens as part of the mainstream, particularly those who are as attractive and charming as young Wade. Wade is fully aware of his charms and on track for a show-stopping finale to his enviable high school career. He just needs to score the lead in the upcoming production of My Fair Lady, be voted into prom court with his athlete boyfriend Reese, and get his acceptance letter from the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU.

The gender-swapped Eliza Doolittle is Elijah Brady, a nerdy sophomore who has yet to find his social tribe. Elijah desperately wants to overcome his shyness and make his first high school friend, but he’s just about convinced that he’s a hopeless case. His only skill at making conversation is citing morbid trivia, his principal social life is with his mom and dad, and he’s certain that further embarrassment awaits him when he becomes the only person in his class to flunk his driver’s test.

When Elijah gets recruited as a warm body for the stage crew of My Fair Lady, the two boys collide, quite literally of course, on stage during rehearsals, because this is a rom-com. Normally, Wade wouldn’t give a gawky sophomore the time of day, but his circumstances have changed disastrously. His attention-seeking behavior prompted Reese to dump him just months before the prom, and to make things worse, the theater director cast Reese as Henry Higgins while Wade’s final performance on the high school stage will be as bland Colonel Pickering. Wade remains determined to finish his senior year in triumph, and he sees an opportunity to win back Reese. If he takes Elijah under his wing to become part of the popular crowd, he’ll show Reese that he’s not a self-absorbed jerk and Reese will have to give him a second chance. The first step is to transform Elijah into outgoing, put-together “Brady,” which won’t raise many eyebrows based on Elijah’s nearly nonexistent profile at Monroe Academy.

The story retains the light-hearted tone of its musical inspiration, but Kennedy wisely adds some depth to his two male leads who could otherwise cross over to crass caricature. Wade’s annoying preoccupation with being the center of attention is tempered nicely when we see the pressure and sense of otherness he feels at home. His two older brothers were star high school football players, and his family life revolves around cheering them on throughout the N.C.A.A. season. Wade’s parents aren’t homophobic, but his brothers’ achievements are clearly easier for them to relate to than Wade’s passion for the stage. To gain their approval, he feels that he must reach the height of success in theater as his older brothers did with football. One senses that a bit of heterosexism figures into that dilemma, thus Wade’s pursuit of the perfect boyfriend, Reese, feels like another way to show his parents he’s worthy of their attention, just like his brothers who are paired up with long-term girlfriends. Privately, he’s wracked by stresses and insecurities that will be relatable to many readers.

Elijah also has dimensions. He’s not merely a self-hating, passive participant in Wade’s grand plan to make him popular. He’s more or less aware of the ridiculousness of the situation, and he brings Wade into his less fabulous world as much as Wade brings him into his world of trendy gay coffee shops, high school parties, and Hollywood musicals. When Wade comes along on an annual fishing trip with Elijah’s father, the two boys’ relationship deepens as they begin to see each other as they are. Both young men are drawn out realistically and sympathetically, and at its core, the story is quite an earnest meditation on the trials of gay boys, no matter where they fit in the teen social hierarchy. To this queer reader, Kennedy overcompensates a bit lest readers miss the lesson: it’s not nice that Wade began his journey with selfish motivations, but such is the careful convention of mainstream YA. Setting aside that minor quibble, My Fair Brady is a fun, uplifting story that will have broad appeal above and beyond readers drawn to its high school theater setting.

Reviewed by Andrew J. Peters

Encore! Encore! – Elías Miguel Muñoz (Rattling Good Yarns Press)

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Rattling Good Yarns Press

Veteran author, poet, and playwright Elías Miguel Muñoz makes his return to the author stage with the release of his first novel in a planned series focused on the lives of people in Hispanic Caribbean nations. That’s a world Muñoz knows first-hand and is passionate about, having grown up in Cuba and gone on to become a professor of Latin American literature. He chose as his first subject the Dominican Republic in the 1980s, explored through an interwoven story about the inhabitants of the Hotel Cristobal, a place where foreign men pay for sex with ‘macho’ native rent boys.

The four principal characters are two teenage hustlers, Luis and Richard, and their much older patrons, Paul and Antonio. Luis is a sixteen-year-old who tricks at the Hotel Cristobal to improve his single mother’s financial status. His mom is fiercely independent and chose not to marry, which comes at a considerable cost, especially in a developing Latin country with a strong strain of machismo. She works two low-paying jobs and still can’t get ahead. Luis has a girlfriend and rejects the idea that he’s gay just because he has sex with wealthy foreign men. He views prostitution as a smart way to make money easier and quicker than any other work available to him, and it possibly could help with his dream of becoming a recording artist.

His younger counterpart, Richard, is just starting out at the Hotel Cristobal for similar reasons. While his family is better off than Luis’, it’s all relative in a country where most people are poor and there’s little money to be made in any profession. Richard feels he has a duty to contribute to his family income and reduce the burden on his overworked and aging father. Like Luis, Richard would never say he’s gay, and the prospect of making big money in the sex trade is exciting to him. Also like Luis, Richard’s passions are quieter and less traditional. He’s a science fiction nerd and writes poetry.

Paul is a senior editor at an American textbook company and travels to Santo Domingo annually for a book fair. He lives in San Francisco and has a longtime partner, with whom the sexual chemistry has faded. Paul’s dalliances with Dominican hustlers are tolerated by his partner. Having survived a violent and homophobic childhood in Texas and fought his way to the top in a cutthroat, heterocentric industry, Paul is unabashed about who he is and what he wants. He considers his yearly trips to the Hotel Cristobal as a well-earned vacation from the stresses of his life in the U.S., including the accelerating AIDS crisis.

Last, Antonio is a middle-aged Spanish author of some renown who comes from a wealthy family that was aligned with Franco and his bloody fascist regime. A foil to (outwardly) happy-go-lucky Paul, Antonio is weighed down by existential questions and has decided to use his time at the Hotel Cristobal to gather ideas for a novel in which he can express some greater meaning to the lives and loves of its personages. He is not merely a passive observer, however. Antonio is enchanted by young Richard and buys his time for more than conversation. Still, he cannot set aside entirely the implications of participating in a system that exploits poor, dark-skinned boys in a country already ravaged by white colonialism. Additionally, he struggles with guilt over his relationship with his wife back in Spain. They are both bisexual and open to affairs outside of their marriage, but lately, their convenient arrangement is showing some frays.

Muñoz is skilled at portraying the moral vagaries of the world, and mostly he does so by simply allowing the histories and aspirations of his characters evoke the murky gray parts of our human condition. Luis’s mother, Elena, is fully aware that her son is selling his body to help her pay the bills. She is perhaps not a conventionally protective mother, but one who knows her son won’t succeed in the world by playing by the rules. Richard escapes into futuristic fantasies on a faraway planet where he’s an ambisexual android designed to give pleasure for money, but his detached attitude to tricking breaks down pretty quickly when Antonio shows interest in his thoughts and deep down ambitions. Antonio envisions establishing a network of wealthy donors to help Dominican boys leave the sex trade and get an education. Paul has lost many friends to AIDS and is terrified of catching it, yet when AIDS comes up in conversation, he dismisses the subject as “such a downer.” Muñoz gets inside his four male leads without villainizing or martrying them nor using their situations for titillation. There’s something relatable about each of the characters in spite of their place in a predatory institution.

Prostitution has long been a popular motif in gay fiction, but what makes Muñoz’s novel a bit different is the setting and the depth of that context. The story is grounded in the political history of the Dominican Republic and its position as a poor country dependent on white tourism. Through Antonio’s storyline, it’s also a story that touches on generational trauma from war and authoritarianism in twenty-first century Europe. Multi-textured and multi-layered, Encore! Encore! is an intricately crafted story that truly brings the reader into a fascinating moment in time.

Reviewed by Andrew J. Peters