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Between Men: Best New Gay Fiction
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Manufacturer: Running Press
Publisher: Running Press
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Our Price: $12.44
You Save: $ 3.51 ( 22% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Running Press
Publisher: Running Press
Average Customer Rating:
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Between Men: Best New Gay Fiction Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.01083526642
EAN: 9780786718085
ISBN: 0786718080
Label: Running Press
Manufacturer: Running Press
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 368
Publication Date: 2007-05-16
Publisher: Running Press
Studio: Running Press
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.01083526642
EAN: 9780786718085
ISBN: 0786718080
Label: Running Press
Manufacturer: Running Press
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 368
Publication Date: 2007-05-16
Publisher: Running Press
Studio: Running Press
Editorial Review of Between Men: Best New Gay Fiction
Lambda Literary Award-winning editor Richard Canning brings together all new work by Edmund White, Dale Peck, James McCourt, Andrew Holleran, and others.
Customer Reviews of Between Men: Best New Gay Fiction
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Disappointing
Review: Andrew Holleran is ALWAYS good reading, but the others were disappointing. It was hard to finish. Many I glossed over. Let's hope for better ones to come.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Depressing and Outdated
Review: After reading this book I never would have guessed that it was a collection of recent literature. The stories focus on themes that were popular ten to fifteen years ago, and their messages seem dated.
Also, get ready for a grand collection of depression. Every single story is filled with sadness, angst, loneliness, and will leave you with a very apparent frown.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Older Reader Reviews Unfairly Perhaps...
Review: Excuse low ranking. Generation gap. Maybe seniors can't fairly review books by the young. Anhow here are my biases--insights?--outgrown today... I am old enough that in 1969 year of Stonewall, I could enter gay and other bars, but the book's editor was scarcely born. Perhaps my views of (1) literary aesthetics, (2) human interrelationships, are ancient, outmoded today?
First, aesthetics. At least 6 of the 17 selection are not short
stories but are excerpts taken from novels. Which may explain their
seeming flat, static, run-on. Today few object, but good aesthetic form demands a tight unity-within-variety creating a separate completed world. This excerpting, explains (to me anyhow) their formless, diluted quality. Replacing fiction's dynamic rise-fall action with turning on the faucet and letting it flow?
But beyond shoddy artistry, shabby behavior? The editor
states "Most of the protagonists in Between Men, I'm thrilled to
say, behave badly, argue unconvincingly, backtrack constantly,
misdescribe, misappropriate, and misbehave." I agree, though I am
not thrilled. Editor likes this bad-boy quality, I have no time for
(or interest in) it. I never sought such youthful (or lifelong?)
waywardnesses, I always aimed toward grabbing toward life's
opportunities by the double handful, responsively but responsibly.
For my own satisfaction. By contrast, one character says, "The
destiny of gays is pointlessness, just as the destiny of straights
is ugliness." Okaayyy if you say so...
So not much here for crotchety me? "Drifty males slam bam What Were You Thinking At The Time If Anything & where are you going if anywhere, insouciant care-less"... Heck, in one story, an AIDS clinic worker moves near and far from a fetching teen and Nothing Much Happens. Perhaps partly because he wishes this detachment order (call it not an attachment disorder): "There was no having with Jacob, only desire, but I guessed I wouldn't have it any other way." Heck, in a second chronicle, a boy sexes with his female teacher while a super-gay boy stands in the offing and Nothing Much Happens. Heck, in a third tale, a gay couple entertains the father of one of them and Nothing Much Happens. Oh, hints of re-finements do exist. Robert Gluck imbues things with a suave tone at times. Still...
Though ancient, I am younger in esprit. Happy in my work. Survivor of a pragmatically-perfect relationship ended only by demise of the partner who is "with me still." "When the big things are right and in place, how simple and fine it all is really," referring to attachment,
intimacy, bonding... (Another story's character said: "For some
reason, it took me decades to learn that nothing is better than sex
with someone you love." Not for us...)
And so I dissent. Generation-gap? Private cranky rigidity?
Well, I tried. Younger readers will probably enjoy these drifty characters' wanderings, free of my burdens of yesteryear?
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Between Men Is a Mixed Bag...
Review: I was hoping for new gay authors, although the back cover clearly states "new and unpublished stories from eighteen of today's best gay writers"...not new gay writers.
While it is good to revisit Bruce Benderson, Robert Gluck, Andrew Holleran, Kevin Killian, Wayne Kaestenbaum, Michael Lowenthal, Ethan Mordden, Dale Peck, John Weir, Edmund White and the others I got a sense of deja vu or more of the same in many of the stories. The stories were, by and large interesting reading, but perhaps my expectations had been too high. Of course, as so often happens with anthologies, one wonders why certain contemporary gay authors were left out.
Many (too many?) of these stories deal with hustlers and violence and the rather sordid aspects of some gay life. I would have liked to have seen something more positive and life-affirming about gay men, but perhaps that's just not what's being written by "today's best gay writers." If so, that's a shame. We (gay men) don't all live "quiet lives of desperation", boredom and gloomy saddness.
This anthology would best be a good introduction to anyone who has not already read these authors.
A few words of warning: do NOT read Canning's Introduction until after you have finished reading the stories, as he gives away too much. Perhaps this should have been an "Afterword" instead of an "Introduction"? That said, the introduction is a neat summary of previous anthologies and informative on Canning's reasons for creating this anthology as he did. It was a welcome peek into the editor's mind.
To summarize, I found the stories worth reading and it was good to hear these different "voices" juxtaposed, but in the end I felt not entirely satisfied, certainly not excited about the writing.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Eighteen of the Best
Review: Canning, Richard, editor. "Between Men: Original Fiction by Today's Best Gay Writers, Carroll & Graf, 2007.
Amos Lassen and Literary Pride
Eighteen of the Best
Due out in June is am amazing anthology of some of the best writers of gay literature, "Between Men" edited and with an introduction by Richard Canning. Some of the authors in the anthology include Edmund White, Dale Peck, Andrew Holleran, Michael Lowenthal and Bruce Benderson among others. The stories were previously unpublished and I want to compliment Mr. Canning on the authors he as selected to include here. In a lengthy and very informative introduction, we learn how Canning chose the selections as well as background information about gay literary history and each of the individual authors and stories.
The anthology traverses age and geography and it is obvious that Canning took great care in selecting the authors and stories he includes in this collection. And who should better make selections like this? He has written two books on conversations with gay novelists and is well equipped to provide us with an anthology of some of the very best of gay writing around.
Let's look at some of the highlights of the book. Andrew Holleran, who we recently hosted at the Arkansas Literary Festival, gives us the beautiful story entitled "Hello, Young Lovers". Using the theme of boredom in gay life and what can be done about it. In his usual lyric style he gives us a picture which we will not soon forget.
Edmund White looks to the past--to nineteenth century New York in his story," The Painted Boy" in which he imagines a meeting between author Stephen Crane and a guy known as the painted bird. It is another in which the author continues to talk about writing about the past to shape the future. It is beautiful in its simplicity and brevity.
What the entire book gives us is a look at where gay fiction is today. As we read the stories we read about the lives of men who even though may be looked upon as being dangerous for putting their writing out there. But the same men who wrote these wonderful stories are diverse as the colors of the rainbow and as wise as they can be. If you are new to gay literature here is a beautiful way to jump on it. If you have been reading it for years like myself, you will begin to understand what it is all about and what a wonderful group of authors we have telling our stories.
Review Summary: Disappointing
Review: Andrew Holleran is ALWAYS good reading, but the others were disappointing. It was hard to finish. Many I glossed over. Let's hope for better ones to come.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Depressing and Outdated
Review: After reading this book I never would have guessed that it was a collection of recent literature. The stories focus on themes that were popular ten to fifteen years ago, and their messages seem dated.
Also, get ready for a grand collection of depression. Every single story is filled with sadness, angst, loneliness, and will leave you with a very apparent frown.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Older Reader Reviews Unfairly Perhaps...
Review: Excuse low ranking. Generation gap. Maybe seniors can't fairly review books by the young. Anhow here are my biases--insights?--outgrown today... I am old enough that in 1969 year of Stonewall, I could enter gay and other bars, but the book's editor was scarcely born. Perhaps my views of (1) literary aesthetics, (2) human interrelationships, are ancient, outmoded today?
First, aesthetics. At least 6 of the 17 selection are not short
stories but are excerpts taken from novels. Which may explain their
seeming flat, static, run-on. Today few object, but good aesthetic form demands a tight unity-within-variety creating a separate completed world. This excerpting, explains (to me anyhow) their formless, diluted quality. Replacing fiction's dynamic rise-fall action with turning on the faucet and letting it flow?
But beyond shoddy artistry, shabby behavior? The editor
states "Most of the protagonists in Between Men, I'm thrilled to
say, behave badly, argue unconvincingly, backtrack constantly,
misdescribe, misappropriate, and misbehave." I agree, though I am
not thrilled. Editor likes this bad-boy quality, I have no time for
(or interest in) it. I never sought such youthful (or lifelong?)
waywardnesses, I always aimed toward grabbing toward life's
opportunities by the double handful, responsively but responsibly.
For my own satisfaction. By contrast, one character says, "The
destiny of gays is pointlessness, just as the destiny of straights
is ugliness." Okaayyy if you say so...
So not much here for crotchety me? "Drifty males slam bam What Were You Thinking At The Time If Anything & where are you going if anywhere, insouciant care-less"... Heck, in one story, an AIDS clinic worker moves near and far from a fetching teen and Nothing Much Happens. Perhaps partly because he wishes this detachment order (call it not an attachment disorder): "There was no having with Jacob, only desire, but I guessed I wouldn't have it any other way." Heck, in a second chronicle, a boy sexes with his female teacher while a super-gay boy stands in the offing and Nothing Much Happens. Heck, in a third tale, a gay couple entertains the father of one of them and Nothing Much Happens. Oh, hints of re-finements do exist. Robert Gluck imbues things with a suave tone at times. Still...
Though ancient, I am younger in esprit. Happy in my work. Survivor of a pragmatically-perfect relationship ended only by demise of the partner who is "with me still." "When the big things are right and in place, how simple and fine it all is really," referring to attachment,
intimacy, bonding... (Another story's character said: "For some
reason, it took me decades to learn that nothing is better than sex
with someone you love." Not for us...)
And so I dissent. Generation-gap? Private cranky rigidity?
Well, I tried. Younger readers will probably enjoy these drifty characters' wanderings, free of my burdens of yesteryear?
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Between Men Is a Mixed Bag...
Review: I was hoping for new gay authors, although the back cover clearly states "new and unpublished stories from eighteen of today's best gay writers"...not new gay writers.
While it is good to revisit Bruce Benderson, Robert Gluck, Andrew Holleran, Kevin Killian, Wayne Kaestenbaum, Michael Lowenthal, Ethan Mordden, Dale Peck, John Weir, Edmund White and the others I got a sense of deja vu or more of the same in many of the stories. The stories were, by and large interesting reading, but perhaps my expectations had been too high. Of course, as so often happens with anthologies, one wonders why certain contemporary gay authors were left out.
Many (too many?) of these stories deal with hustlers and violence and the rather sordid aspects of some gay life. I would have liked to have seen something more positive and life-affirming about gay men, but perhaps that's just not what's being written by "today's best gay writers." If so, that's a shame. We (gay men) don't all live "quiet lives of desperation", boredom and gloomy saddness.
This anthology would best be a good introduction to anyone who has not already read these authors.
A few words of warning: do NOT read Canning's Introduction until after you have finished reading the stories, as he gives away too much. Perhaps this should have been an "Afterword" instead of an "Introduction"? That said, the introduction is a neat summary of previous anthologies and informative on Canning's reasons for creating this anthology as he did. It was a welcome peek into the editor's mind.
To summarize, I found the stories worth reading and it was good to hear these different "voices" juxtaposed, but in the end I felt not entirely satisfied, certainly not excited about the writing.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Eighteen of the Best
Review: Canning, Richard, editor. "Between Men: Original Fiction by Today's Best Gay Writers, Carroll & Graf, 2007.
Amos Lassen and Literary Pride
Eighteen of the Best
Due out in June is am amazing anthology of some of the best writers of gay literature, "Between Men" edited and with an introduction by Richard Canning. Some of the authors in the anthology include Edmund White, Dale Peck, Andrew Holleran, Michael Lowenthal and Bruce Benderson among others. The stories were previously unpublished and I want to compliment Mr. Canning on the authors he as selected to include here. In a lengthy and very informative introduction, we learn how Canning chose the selections as well as background information about gay literary history and each of the individual authors and stories.
The anthology traverses age and geography and it is obvious that Canning took great care in selecting the authors and stories he includes in this collection. And who should better make selections like this? He has written two books on conversations with gay novelists and is well equipped to provide us with an anthology of some of the very best of gay writing around.
Let's look at some of the highlights of the book. Andrew Holleran, who we recently hosted at the Arkansas Literary Festival, gives us the beautiful story entitled "Hello, Young Lovers". Using the theme of boredom in gay life and what can be done about it. In his usual lyric style he gives us a picture which we will not soon forget.
Edmund White looks to the past--to nineteenth century New York in his story," The Painted Boy" in which he imagines a meeting between author Stephen Crane and a guy known as the painted bird. It is another in which the author continues to talk about writing about the past to shape the future. It is beautiful in its simplicity and brevity.
What the entire book gives us is a look at where gay fiction is today. As we read the stories we read about the lives of men who even though may be looked upon as being dangerous for putting their writing out there. But the same men who wrote these wonderful stories are diverse as the colors of the rainbow and as wise as they can be. If you are new to gay literature here is a beautiful way to jump on it. If you have been reading it for years like myself, you will begin to understand what it is all about and what a wonderful group of authors we have telling our stories.