By Richard Labonte
Clearcut
By Nina Shengold. Anchor Books, 342 pages, $13 paper
Boys love girl, girl loves boys, and boy loves boy in this memorable debut novel, a sexually steamy and emotionally engaging menage a trois set evocatively in the free-wheeling '70s, when "hippie" was still a way of life and "free love" was still a mantra. Earley is a hard-drinking man's man muscling out a lonely living by recovering scrap cedar from the Pacific Northwest's clear-cut timberland. Reed is a skinny, sensitive, and smartass college dropout searching for his runaway girlfriend. The two meet when bar-bound Earley picks up a bedraggled Reed, who is hitchhiking his way towards the tree-planting camp where his fiery and free-spirited girlfriend, Zan, is working. The lusty affair that flares between Earley and Zan, the simmering love maintained by Zan and Reed, and the erotic passion and reckless sex the three share are the body of Shengold's grand, tragic story. But its heart lies in how Earley and Reed, two men from utterly different worlds, love each other in a way neither fully understands, but which both come, hauntingly, to accept.
Featured Excerpt:
He could feel Reed's pulse throbbing, the warmth of his skin turning gritty with stubble. He's a "guy," Earley thought, this is weirder than hell. But he couldn't stop touching him. Reed put down his mandolin and turned towards him. The look in his eyes was like nothing that Earley had ever seen. It was love, pure and simple, but something more, something ashamed of itself and relieved and stark naked and painfully new. This is it, said Reed's eyes. This is what I've been trying to tell you.
-from "Clearcut," by Nina Shengold
Rode Hard, Put Away Wet: Lesbian Cowboy Erotica
Edited by Sacchi Greene and Rakelle Valencia. Suspect Thoughts Press, 217 pages, $16.95 paper
Not all the lesbians are cowboys, and not even all the cowboys are lesbian – but this strong collection of erotica about gals who wear chaps, know their way around a horse, and can tie a mean knot does live up to its catchy title. Most of the tales are more sizzling vignette than fully developed short story, heavy on sexual tension and sex and light on character and plot. But a few offer some true emotional tone, and so stand out from the rest. Cheyenne Blue's "The Other Side of the Rockies" is a slight but wrenching story about a woman rescued from her husband's abuse by a cowgirl's strong arms. Jay Lake's "Dry Heart, Dreaming" is a numbing, humbling story about a widow, trying to save her ranch in the midst of a devastating drought, who opens herself to the love of a lady rancher. And Connie Wilkins' "Snowfound," with some historical heft, is about a cross-dressing Civil War soldier who, after the war, finds a woman she can love in the Sierra gold country of California.
Three Fortunes in One Cookie
By Cochrane Lambert. Alyson Books, 416 pages, $14.95 paper
Phillip's boyfriend has dumped him, his Barnes & Noble job depresses him, he can't pay his rent, he has no energy for his art, and a bitter New York winter looms. So when his domineering grandfather demands that Phillip move back to small-town Mississippi and the antebellum home where he was raised, to care for his sweetly deranged mother, he doesn't have much choice. The deft writing team of (Becky) Cochrane and (Timothy) Lambert have crafted a beguiling, campy epic crammed with sympathetic characters and engaging eccentrics, including Phillip's four aunts, who run the gamut from fulminating fundamentalist to reserved lesbian; the Irish hunk he left behind in Manhattan, who might still be the man of his dreams; his new Mississippi acquaintances, one of them a voyeuristic hooker, another an easygoing leather Daddy; and an old high school chum struggling with his own desires. "Three Fortunes in One Cookie" is bright and breezy, but the ease with which it can be read belies a complex, captivating plot and charming, solid storytelling.
Center Square: The Paul Lynde Story
By Joe Florenski and Steve Wilson. Advocate Books, 245 pages, $15.95 paper
More than 20 years after his death, Paul Lynde lives on through reruns of his sarcastic – but almost always scripted – quips on the pre-Whoopi Goldberg incarnation of "Hollywood Squares," and through his scant 10 appearances as fey Uncle Arthur on "Bewitched": camp humor incarnate. But for anyone over 35 or so who saw those shows first-run, he was probably living proof – particularly for impressionable, questioning teens – that to be queer was to be a sassy sissy. Co-authors Florenski and Wilson flesh out that caricature of Lynde somewhat in this well-researched but often fawning biography, though they don't have much to go on beyond the reminiscences of showbiz peers (Phyllis Diller, Cloris Leachman, Peter Marshall, and Charlotte Rae among them) and a few early-career friends, including the rather clueless woman Lynde once thought he was going to marry. Lynde, until late in his life a self-destructive alcoholic, had few close friends and no real lovers. That's no doubt why "Center Square," with its dry cut-and-paste tone, never really brings him to life.
Footnotes
:
BOOKS TO WATCH OUT FOR: Lauren Blitzer, until recently a "Teen Vogue" sales assistant keeping up with beauty trends, is teaming up with writing partner Lauren Levin for a coming-out how-to tome – "for feminine lesbians," she says – described as a light-hearted book offering serious advice to young women curious about lipstick life outside the closet. The working title for the book was "So You Found Out Your Prince Charming Is Really a Cinderella," but it's due from Simon & Spotlight Entertainment in summer 2006 as the more sober "The Femme Girls' Guide to Coming Out.".. GAY NOVELIST TOM DOLBY ("The Trouble Boy") and straight young-adult author Melissa de la Cruz (the sassy "Au Pairs" series) are teaming up to edit an anthology of essays about the friendships between straight women and gay men; their proposal is soon to make the rounds… FORMER NFL OFFENSIVE LINEMAN Roy Simmons, who played with the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins from 1979 to 1984, recounts a story of heavy drugs, lots of sex, childhood abuse, and life as a macho gladiator, in his memoir, "Out of Bounds: My Life In and Out of the NFL Closet," due this winter from Carroll & Graf; he's the third pro footballer to come out, joining David Kopay and Esera Tuaolo.
