By Richard Labonte
Bliss
By Fiona Zedde. Kensington Books, 296 pages, $14 paper
For its first few chapters, this is a torrid sizzler of a novel. Bliss Sinclair is a straight and straight-laced big-city professional bored by her boyfriend. Almost overnight, she's seduced by a sultry woman writer into a lusty whirl of carnal adventure and fetishistic sex. Just as suddenly, the lover who was wetting her panties every night tells her their affair is over. Brokenhearted, Bliss flees from the United States back to Jamaica, her birthplace, to lick her sexual wounds while reconciling with her estranged father. It's at this point that the novel morphs from mere hot lesbian raunch into something more complex and compelling. "Bliss" is essentially a breezy beach read, but one graced with a nuanced story about reconnecting with the past, finding solace in the present, and learning that there is a future filled with true love. In addition, Jamaican-born Zedde writes about her native land with an honest affection that adds travelogue heft to her lightweight fiction.
Featured Excerpt:
Regina jerked forward with the force of each slap, like she was being taken from behind. She bared her teeth in a feral smile. Fifteen. Her face and shoulders flushed pink. Sixteen. She turned to look at Sinclair and licked her mouth. Seventeen. The chair slipped abruptly across the floor. Eighteen. Sinclair held her breath as the teacher began to put all of her weight behind the remaining blows. Nineteen. Regina clenched her teeth and closed her eyes. Twenty was the loudest. As the echoes of it died away, Sinclair could hear the teacher's labored breathing.
-from "Bliss," by Fiona Zeddes
Quicksands: A Memoir
By Sybille Bedford. Counterpoint Press, 384 pages, $24.95 hardcover
Do any but the most committed of queer readers know the work of Sybille Bedford? Probably not, which is a shame. Her most lesbian novel, "A Compass Error," was one of her lesser (but still exquisitely stylish) efforts; her autobiographical novel, "Jigsaw," was decidedly veiled about her personal life. "Quicksands," published as the author turned 94, is the serene, episodic memoir of an original bohemian – a grand survivor who lived large on little income, and who fell in love often and madly, usually with other women. Most of it recalls her wild youth in Europe and her no less turbulent adult years meandering from London to Paris to Berlin to Rome to Florence to New York, and back to London – she finally secured a British passport by marrying in 1936 a "bugger friend" of Aldous Huxley's, an arranged marriage she remembers with fondness. Bedford claims that a lifetime of "serene inertia" kept her from writing much. That confession is belied by the lyrical passion of her body of work, and by the evocative power and grace of this beguiling remembrance.
Nothing Is True Everything Is Permitted: The Life of Brion Gysin
By John Geiger. The Disinformation Company, 336 pages, $27.95 hardcover
Two decades after Brion Gysin's death, the obscure Beat buddy of William Burroughs gets the biography he has long deserved. Gysin, a fellow cosmic traveler whose oeuvre was overshadowed by the likes of Paul and Jane Bowles and Allen Ginsberg, wrote compelling poetry and two challenging novels, but to mixed reviews. He was a visionary multimedia artist, but with few shows and slow sales. He came up with the "cut-up" method of automatic writing, but others made it famous. He conceived the Dream Machine, a flickering-light device that induced altered states of consciousness, but was never able to market it. He even contributed the hash brownie recipe for Alice B. Toklas' infamous cookbook, but Toklas got the credit. Although Gysin is the Beat most people never heard of, Geiger's brisk, thorough biography more than makes the case that he was among the most influential cultural figures of the 20th century – as Geiger notes, the likes of David Bowie, Patti Smith, Michael Stipe, and the late Keith Haring were all inspired in their art by Gysin's life and work.
Third & Heaven
By Ben Patrick Johnson. Alyson Books, 291 pages, $14.95 paper
Three gay men lust for love and fame in Hollywood, while their older, self-described "fag hag" friend will settle for love. The quartet gets together when they can for spirited Sunday brunches where they encourage, console, and occasionally upbraid each other. Passion, frustration, despair, elation, and breakthroughs happen. And they remain friends through it all. That's the pith of this clever and likable novel, a cheery mix of showbiz dish, comic situations, and unalloyed sentimentality. The four friends are Freddy, a former entertainment-show host and aspiring novelist besotted by a meth-addicted Broadway star; Joshua, a struggling publicist for wanna-bes and used-to-be's, who is still mourning his lover's AIDS death; Ritchie, a hunky personal trainer with serious acting ambitions; and mother-hen Claire, twice-divorced and prone to regrettable romances. It's no surprise that by story's end Freddy comes to his senses and discovers his muse, Joshua finds a worthy client and a new lover, Ritchie hits the stage to rave reviews, and Claire settles more comfortably into her skin – but the story arc of "Third & Heaven" is, nicely, never predictable.
Footnotes:
A BOOKSTORE SPECIALIZING in used gay and lesbian books has opened in Lansing, Mich. The stock isn't exclusively queer – "there are books for both Will and Grace," founder John David Hinkle said in an interview for a local weekly – but he describes John David's Lightly Used Books as a "no-hate zone for the LGBT community and their friends." For information, and an amusing diary of a gay bookseller's life: http://www.john-david.blogspot.com… SAN FRANCISCO POET, AIDS EDUCATOR, and activist Thomas Avena died August 3 of AIDS, at age 46. In 1995 he edited the American Book Award-winning anthology "Life Sentences: Writers, Artists, and AIDS," which included essays by musician Diamanda Galas, filmmaker Marlon Riggs, and novelist Edmund White; his poetry collection, "Dream of Order," published in 1997, was hailed by Adrienne Rich as "unselfish in a profound way," and by Tony Kushner as "elegiac, tragic, hopeful, fragile, and very, very tough." He created one of the earliest HIV oral-history projects for the Smithsonian, "Project Face to Face," and received the International Humanitas Award for his work in AIDS education and the arts.
