The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
Gay Western Novels..
injest:
and one of the problems I have found with gay youth groups is the emphasis on sex and porn. That isn't my familys values, and the fact that my son is gay does not mean he doesnt' need to abide by them. or that they are obsolete..
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on September 01, 2008, 08:30:33 pm ---I've got it. It's on my to-read pile. ... :-\
I've snooped through it from time to time. I don't hold much hope for it--probably why I haven't read it, yet--but we'll see. Eventually. :-\
--- End quote ---
Well, let us know how it turns out. I read one gay Western novel once - it was from the 'erotic' book section of Borders - and it was basically Danielle Steele for gay men. Horrible. Just horrible.
MaineWriter:
--- Quote from: injest on September 01, 2008, 10:53:48 pm ---the thing that attracted me to this novel was a review I saw that said it would be an excellent book for a young gay teen. That interested me. That is a niche that isnt' really served. When D came out, I wanted to get him books that featured gay characters but the only thing I found that didn't have a lot of graphic sex in it was Mary Renaults books. (the fact that they presented an idealized sense of what a gay relationship should be was a major plus)
--- End quote ---
The interview I posted, the author addresses that question:
SiN: Some reviewers are touting your book as YA. Was that what you had in mind when you wrote it?
MRP: Absolutely. I wanted to write a book that I would have enjoyed and that would have helped me to come to terms with my homosexuality when I was a teenager. There weren’t any books like that 25-30 years ago and the gay books that did exist back then, if I’d had access to them, would have embarrassed me and would have filled me with guilt, due to their very adult nature. If even one gay teen reads The Filly and feels better about himself because of it, I will feel that I have been a great success.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on September 01, 2008, 11:37:54 pm ---Well, let us know how it turns out. I read one gay Western novel once - it was from the 'erotic' book section of Borders - and it was basically Danielle Steele for gay men. Horrible. Just horrible.
--- End quote ---
Aw, now, c'mon, Del, don't tease us like that and then not tell us the title! ;D
The New Yorker once said of Kenneth Branagh's film of Much Ado About Nothing, "Sometimes all you ask of Shakespeare is Denzel Washington in leather pants," and sometimes all you want of a gay Western is a couple of hot cowboys doin' the nasty. ;)
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: MaineWriter on September 02, 2008, 08:15:24 am ---The interview I posted, the author addresses that question:
SiN: Some reviewers are touting your book as YA. Was that what you had in mind when you wrote it?
MRP: Absolutely. I wanted to write a book that I would have enjoyed and that would have helped me to come to terms with my homosexuality when I was a teenager. There weren’t any books like that 25-30 years ago and the gay books that did exist back then, if I’d had access to them, would have embarrassed me and would have filled me with guilt, due to their very adult nature. If even one gay teen reads The Filly and feels better about himself because of it, I will feel that I have been a great success.
--- End quote ---
If the author actually conceived of the book as a novel for young adults, that may explain a lot about the impression I got on my browses through it, and it would alter my expectations when I actually sit down to read the whole thing. I had heard nothing about the book when I found it at Giovanni's Room, our independent gay bookstore, and just picked it up because it was a gay Western. While Giovanni's Room doesn't have a "young adult" section, it does have a section for books aimed at gay parents and at children growing up with gay parents, and so forth, but that wasn't where they had The Filly. I found the book shelved with all the other gay novels, and I think that probably colored my expectations, too. I wasn't expecting a novel for "young adults"--and I had also recently completed Longhorns, which is most definitely a novel for adults (had a good story line but struck me as a little simplistic and implausible).
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