The Other Side of Silence by John Loughery
I recently finished this book on "Men's Lives & Gay Identities - A Twentieth-Century History." It wasn't the
best book for my interests, but I did serendipitously find it for cheap at Daedalus books. I'm slow at non-fiction so it took me forever to read this book.
I always wanted to read more about gay life in the 20s and 30s. This book had interviews that offered some insight. But really, the book got most interesting in the 1960's, when everything gets all passionate and real. I guess it just takes a really spectacular book to impart a sense of time and place for me, especially when I have very little "pre-concieved notions." (I love that term)
This book had some stuff that I ought to have known about so I'm glad I read it. But I wouldn't recommend it to fellow jazz-age enthusiasts for depictions of that era.
Unrelatedly, I found it weird when a semi-scholarly book is using terms like "fucking and sucking."
Sunset and Sawdust by Joe R Lansdale
I can't believe I had this book sitting around for
well over a year. Well maybe I can believe it. It's some bargain bin book. But I always need some period fiction to mix it up.
I found this book to be kind of trashy, but not in a good way. I really don't have much to say about this book actually. A red-headed lady kills her abusive husband then takes on his position of sherrif which leaves her faux-empowered. Lots of attempts at sexual tension and gritty reality of crappy people.
They uncover this whole mystery-scandal stuff. And then it kind of ends. Oh also there's this one villain character who has some kind of split personality and talks to himself. It's like some David Lynch business but doesn't achieve the mood of some Blue Velvet Frank shenanigans.
Overall I agree with this
amazon reviewer: "
Landsdale's descriptive style is generally crass and rude. Why use just a word when a cuss word or vulgar word can be put in. For example, a dying man thinks, "Goddamn, taken from behind, that's not right, not me, I'm always ready, but goddamn, I feel it, a knife in my back, tight as a bull's dick in a chicken's ass". Such needless vulgarity cheapened the scene, which should have been moving, as well as making it unrealistic. The overusage of "pussy", "bitch" and "dick" and over-focus on sex and attractive women made this appear to the be the work of a hormonal teenager. "
So don't read this. Or do.. it's a quick read. So if you do we can make fun of it together.
Labels: books
