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[FionaG]

Wading through might be a better term than reading: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by James Berendt.

It's billed as a non fiction novel (whatever that is) and is basically a very wordy travelogue a la Bill Bryson, only with less humour, more factual stuff and a bit of a murder mystery thrown in.

Waaay too much use of dialogue to info dump facts, along the lines of 'Oh, that's Mrs Henry Du Tour Mayweather. Her father was one of the richest men in Savannah and owned a string of forty seven racehorses, one of which came first in every race in the country in 1953'.

I'll probalby finish it, but it may take a while....

[FionaG]

Almost finished wading. LOL

Actually it's grown on me the more I've read. Still not exactly action-packed and there are far too many passages along the lines of "The man in the corner of the bar was Samuel T Jehosophat of the Atlanta Jehosophats. He was the leading light of the First Jehosophat bank from 1963 and in his spare time he ran the Savannah Opera Company with a fist of steel. A tall, thin, greying man with a stoop, Jehosophat stood...."

OK, I made all that up. But it really isn't so very far from the truth.

The thing that rescues the book is the characters - all apparently real people, or based on real people. There are some true 'characters' amongst them: The Lady Chablis, a feisty black drag queen; Joe Odom, who squats illegally in a succession of priceless mansions and charges coach parties to do in-house tours; Jim Williams, tried four times for the murder of his rent-boy lover Danny.

If it hadn't been for them I'd soon have got bored.

[FionaG]

Finished it! Phew. LOL

Now I'm going to start 'Little Moscow' by Mick Scully, which is a series of connected short stories set here in Birmingham (UK). It's not strictly speaking a gay book but does feature a transsexual as one of the main characters and some of the marketing has been targeting the gay community.

Ansley and I went to an author reading on this one a few months back. The reading itself was pretty tedious but the book sounds rather good. I'll let you know!

[Ansley Vaughan]

Oh yes, I've got to wade through this one too...

...er...I have this delight still to come.

It's got to be good, because it's about Birmingham.

But he was heavy going.

There was a nice dog at the reading though, a pug called Pootle...

[FionaG]

The dog was *gorgeous*. If I'd had a bigger handbag that night I think he'd have come home with me.

I started this earlier and you know what? I think it's going to be jolly good. The stories are 'told' by different characters using different pov and different styles of writing to suit each one. The first story is a fairly typical British-gangland style thing (think Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels or Layer Cake) with very short sentences and lots of swearing, and I did find that tedious towardds the end. But the second story was very , very different and very good. And because they're short stories, you're not stuck in each one for very long if you don't like it.

So far the Brum setting isn't as obvious as I thought it would be. There's a few mentions of local landmarks and a bit of Brummie twang in the dialogue but that's about it. Not so good for me <g> but better for anyone who doesn't know the city.

[FionaG]

Now I'm on 'While England Sleeps' by David Leavitt. Enjoying it immensely.

[Ansley Vaughan]

Damn, the quote thing doesn't seem to be working.

I absolutely loved 'While England Sleeps.'

Now, I'm reading 'The Body of Jonah Boyd.' This is a weird one. It's not actually a gay book, and is told in the first person from the perspective of a rather dowdy female university secretary.

Every e-book publisher and editor in the known universe should be made to read this book. It breaks all the rules. I'll write elsewhere about the structure. Suffice it to say that Leavitt wouldn't survive in our little pond.

But there you are. He's only the director of the creative writing programme at the University of Florida.

[FionaG]

Argh you're right about the quotes. *sulks*

I so agree about editors and e-publishers. While we're at it, force-feeding them with books, we could do worse than shove Dancer at them. I've mentioned it elsewhere - it's the one with the 32-page long sentence. But it *works*, dammit....

[Erastes]

I agree with Ansley, I adored "While England Sleeps"!

[FionaG]

Yes, me too. It was very sad *sniffle* but worth every tear. *Such* good writing.