Object of Desire- Palm Springs Confidential

[+ Lucky]

I just finished William J. Mann's new gay novel, Object of Desire. I always start his books with low expectations as I know there will be some over the top writing, sappy stories, and the requisite beautiful boy being lusted after by older men. Since this novel takes place partly in Palm Springs, I was happy to use my 40% off coupon at Borders to buy the book.

 

In general I liked it. The writing is at its best when it leaves Palm Springs and goes to the main characters boyhood, where his sister had gone missing and his mother was going crazy. It's a devastating portrayal. West Hollywood also figures in, as this is where Danny, the aforementioned main character, does his stripping at a popular bar where the owner supplies the coke and Danny gets blown in the back room by the horny old men for whom a flash of flesh is not enough.

 

Palm Springs is where most of the action takes place, and it fares fairly well, especially the mountains, but Mann gets in some smarmy remarks. Even though older men were often in the company of their boy toys, it's clear that Mann has some disdain for them.

 

Here are a few of his choice quotes:

 

"You forget that in Palm Springs , even turning forty one still qualifies one as chicken...The place was filled with fifty-to seventy-somethings. Distinguished-looking men mostly, men who had once been handsome, men who even now retained some awareness of how they should look, even if they were held together by buttons and cinched belts and oversize Tommy Bahama floral-print shirts.A noticeable few displayed the plumped lips and shiny foreheads of cosmetic surgery. But the ones who stood out the most were the heirs of Liberace, scattered throughout the crowd, wearing red velvet blazers and too much sweet cologne."

 

Of the Danny's fifty-five year old lover, who always falls asleep too early to have sex: "Once Frank had been a few inches taller than I, but no longer. Somewhere over the last two decades, he had settled, like the frame of a house. His joints had retracted; his bones had curled inward ever so slightly. I studied him now at close range, observing the dark circles under his eyes, the mosaic of brown spots etched across his high, shiny forehead."

 

"Edgar, (the owner of the strip club) was an old guy. Forty, I think. Maybe forty-one. He was balding, with a puckered face and nostrils that were permanently red and distended from too much blow. Rumor had it that he had AIDS, too. I wouldn't let him near me."

 

On first seeing Frank: "He might be thirty, but he was still adorable."

 

"Palm Springs, for all its charms, was the proverbial little pond with lots of big fish. The elite was made up of people who spent their time raising money for charities and then giving themselves awards for doing so...all the self congratulating became a little weary."

 

"Some called the bars on one side of Arenas Road the Lairs of the Living Dead. In those places, men in their fifties were considered fresh meat."

 

Mann saves his harshest comments for the "Gods of Palm Springs." These guys are "huge, and hulking. Massive shoulders, ropes for veins, big, hard protruding bellies...Gays on Disability and Steroids."... "The hulking look has been fetishized...the big veins and protruding gut are considered erotic."

 

So, take a look at the book. You might like it. I did to a point, realizing that it won't be featured on the Sunday Book Review cover.

[+ newatthis]

I look forward to reading it. I've always been a sucker for Mann's sappy stories -- even find myself tearing up from time to time. Don't know if I'll be able to deal with the transplantation of the sappy stories our of P'town, though.

[Guest Callipygean]

Object of Desire

 

“Some disdain” for older men, you say? Wow, I shudder to imagine what he’d write if he had unreserved disdain. I haven’t read the book, but judging by these excerpts, it makes illiteracy seem almost attractive to me.

 

Admittedly, I know little of Mr. Mann or his books, I had to google him to find his biography. From what I read, he seems to be no lightweight, and is praised for his writing. Apparently, his novels have been lauded for their “keen insight on the present, especially the lives of gay American men.” If that’s true, then I pray I’m spared from encounters with the gay American men he depicts.

 

I don’t believe for a moment, however, that the gay men he writes about are in any way representative of anything but a particular type. It may well be a true and accurate representation of that “type”, but I know the reality is not so one dimensional. Certainly, not limited to the unsavory picture he seems to paint here of “older” gay men, not all of whom are sleazy, pathetic, or predatory old queens. Some, indeed, are urbane, honorable, and compassionate gentlemen who have accumulated wisdom with age, and who, moreover, would never compromise their integrity or basic dignity by drooling salaciously over younger men, much less forcing unwanted attentions on them. It can be argued, of course, such admirable men would not likely provide the raw material for novels, especially not the kind characterized by this example (unflattering gritty exposition passing as some kind of insightful truth).

 

It’s good, nonetheless, to be forewarned. I most assuredly will not trouble to pick up this particular tome, but in fairness I might try one of his other books. Despite Mr. Mann’s apparently jaundiced views of gaykind in this book, he looks to be a skillful writer, well reviewed. I'm willing to risk "sappy". Vinegar in a crystal decanter, however, is still unpalatably sour.

[+ Lucky]

Callipygean, you are the writer. You wrote a nice review of DavidSF and a good commentary here. How about more?