Product Description

In Briefly Told Lives, C. Bard Cole presents a wild panorama that sweeps from the urban gay ghetto to working class suburbia to the counter culture of punks and sex workers, a shockingly original view of lives lived on the edge of both straight society and the gay 'mainstream'. A broad tapestry in which conventional dividing lines begin to loose their fixed meaning, these characters spin their own master narratives, revealing lives rich in meaning and bought dearly through pain and compromise.

Intense and rewarding, Cole's debut collection exposes the complexities and contradictions of personal identity in a world devoid of grand truths and shared values. Briefly Told Lives is brash and insightful, bringing a very different, hidden world into the literary limelight.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2254546 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

From Publishers Weekly
With obvious nods to gay literary icons Dennis Cooper and John Rechy, alternative zine author Cole's aggressive, uneven first collectionA16 stories set mostly in and around New York CityAintroduces an assortment of hapless characters on the margins of the gay community. Gay, straight, but for the most part somewhere in between, Cole's protagonists live sexually charged, unstable lives. Many of the stories are named after their major characters. In "George Gordon Plowhees," 19-year-old Geordie moonlights as an exotic dancer. He is "more or less a gay boy but he doesn't like older men, he likes guys his own age and he likes them to be his friend and not so much boyfriends. Geordie loves his girlfriend too." Drugs, sex and hustlers rule in many of these tales, and those looking for love often wind up taking a beating. A young porn star survives Hollywood, only to overdose in New York in "Darin Brock Holloway." In graphic, laconic "Mitch Huber," the 18-year-old protagonist helps 16-year-old Ted dismember Ted's parents, in return for oral sex. An unexpected note of hope is sounded in "James Loughlin Childes," in which a spirited paraplegic falls in love with a man with cerebral palsy. Cole is at his best when he writes about relatively ordinary men and boys. Three teenagersAtwo are gay and one is straightAdiscuss their sexuality in matter-of-fact terms in "On a Railroad Bridge Throwing Stones." In "Young Hemingways," ostensibly straight Jon has a long-term crush on his literary college roommate, Dale. Cole's uninflected prose is sometimes artfully affectless, but his deliberate lack of stylistic flourishes eventually just sounds flat. The author's own computerized line drawings preface each tale, and are as intentionally crude and faux-na?f as the stories themselves. (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Cole!s debut collection of short stories, some previously released in anthologies such as Men on Men, presents a refreshingly new slant on the gay experience. Although the stories are limited in focus, with many of the characters sharing similar backgrounds, people like the average, beer-drinking guy who happens to be gay are not usually represented in other collections. Often, the characters! sexuality has little to do with the actual plot: some of the told lives include an Asian American trying to fit into a society that interned his parents as children; a paraplegic looking for love; an interracial couple consisting of an older, educated black man and a twentysomething white gang member; and an Irish immigrant storing weapons destined to be smuggled to Ireland. Cole has been publishing fiction and cartoons in underground presses for quite awhile. By joining the mainstream, he is sharing something original with us. Let!s welcome him. Recommended."Theodore R. Salvadori, Margaret E. Heggan Free P.L., Hurffville, NJ
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"A clear-eyed chronicler of ambiguous desire, Cole charts the course of badly lived lives with great economy and wit." -- Paul Russell, author of the award-winning novel The Coming Storm

"An exciting debuts by a young author whose eye for squalor and for tenderness are equally authentic." -- Poppy Z. Brite, author of Exquisite Corpse

"Bard Cole's provocative and entertaining prose makes BRIEFLY TOLD LIVES an exhilarating collection of character studies ... gritty and genuine." -- Katharine Weber, author of The Music Lesson

"Fresh, sweet, lucid, raucous... these stories face the fucked up music of love, sex, loss, and social injustice." -- Dennis Cooper, author of Period

"Slackers, shy sinners, and solipsists populate this new bohemia--all minutely observed by the deadpan Mr. Cole." -- Bruce Benderson, author of User

Customer Reviews

Real Stories! Real People!
These are not your educated, well-bred, middle class gay people in these stories. These are real people who happened to be gay, or even straight. C. Bard Cole has written individual stories, about named individuals that are edgy, brash, and very insightful. The stories are about sex workers, punks, and characters from all different backgrounds which includes teens to rich college boys.

I found this to be an intensely rewarding read because it was so different from the "normal" writing be put out there by the mainstream gay literary giants. This is a fresh and different type of writing. Each story was a brief history into the life of the character. This is a exciting debut for Cole and I really enjoyed this new author. The drawings and illustrations were an added bonus. If you want to read a book that it different and that will stir you try this one.

Briefly Told - but riveting
Bard Cole's short stories profiling the lives of young gay men is fascinating. It's impossible not to care about them, as in just a few pages, they come alive. Some are loveable, some hateful, but I wanted to know more...what shaped them, made them choose one course over another? Gayness aside, the varying approaches to life's problems runs the gamut.

Many of the stories are illustrated with Cole's excellent drawings, and if you can, by visiting his website, wheedle a copy of the chapbook "Fag Sex in High School", you'll be glad you did. I hope this book will be the first of many.

Uneven but generally engaging
C. Bard Cole's laconic style limns a wide variety of gay characters in this collection of stories, from middle- and upper-class men, to denizens of the counterculture, to drug addicts and murderers. His ability to sketch a complete character in a few words is astonishing, and his deliberately documentary-like prose can make an unlikely interracial romance unexpectedly touching. Conversely, the tale of two teenage sex buddies who almost casually descend into murder and addiction chills to the bone when told this way. On the other hand, sometimes the flat style means the narratives remain--well, flat. Overall, there are enough engaging moments in this collection to keep one turning the pages, and the lesser tales are, if nothing else, short.