Product Description

SOMETIMES LOVE IS CLOSER THAN YOU THINK

Brando Haywood is a handsome, popular, and successful entertainment lawyer who seems to have everything but passion. Two years celibate and a prisoner of his routine, he goes through life quietly on the sidelines while his promiscuous best friend, Omar Stevens, thrashes through life and love with all the ups and downs Brando barely realizes he longs for.

Brando's life takes a dramatic turn when he is asked to defend a female friend who has killed her rapist. The sensational and controversial trial that follows not only ignites Brando's fervor for his career but also helps him discover his passion and a true love that had been staring him in the face all along.

Looker firmly establishes Stanley Bennett Clay's reputation as a writer who spins brilliant erotic entertainment even as he challenges his readers' sensibilities.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #125252 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Clay charts the affairs of L.A.'s gay black upper crust in his tawdry third novel (after In Search of Pretty Young Black Men). Brando Heywood and Omar Stevens have been best friends since high school. Now in their forties, Omar, a celebrity journalist, juggles boy-toy liaisons and hanging in Griffith Park while celibate Brando concentrates on his career as a highly-respected entertainment lawyer. But when one of his client's lesbian partner kills a man after he rapes her, he takes the headline-stealing case. The trial holds together a series of mini-dramas, including the discovery of a steamy secret video of Brando and Omar's and Brando's barely below-the-surface feelings for one another. Readers who can keep their disbelief deeply buried will enjoy this erotic, high-stakes romp.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"An engaging novel...The erotic scenes are as steamy as they come!" -- Zane

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter Two

I don't get it," Vanessa Ellerbee said, seemingly to the wall her husband, William, had slouched against. "Make me understand, William." But he still said nothing. His freshened appearance and the whiff of Escape spoke volumes. He had sprayed on Cool Water when he left the house ten hours earlier. And he smelled of Irish Spring, not Ivory, which he showered with before he left home. Finally and slowly he lifted his face and stared at her with a look that said, "What's to understand that you don't understand already?"

Knowing full well what he meant by the stare, Vanessa threw up her hands and shook her head full of church-ready curls. With weary disgust she sucked on her teeth and shifted her weight from one side to the other and sighed as she always sighed whenever he returned home wearing new soap and cologne.

"I'm not letting you go," she vowed like the fool she knew she had become.

"I have no intention of leaving. The congregation wouldn't understand."

"Go get dressed," she then said.

"Are we going to Lucy Florence afterwards?"

"Do the twins serve pie?"

And while William dressed in the suit Vanessa had laid out for him, she stormed out of the bedroom, down the staircase, and stared at herself in thefoyer mirror. She was still beautiful and alluring, still intelligent and articulate. But was she still the unconventional freethinker who had not thought her marriage would be hindered by her husband's bisexuality? He had been up-front with her right from the beginning. And she had gone along with it, encouraged it even. William was a great lover who was even better afterbeing with a man. She loved watching her husband getting fucked and thengetting hers afterward.

But things had changed. She missed DuPré Dixon almost as much as her husband did.

DuPré Dixon, who William had met in a chat room, was one of those slim, torpedo-dick dream pops who smiled like a happy drunk when he fucked, and fucked like good samba when he drank. Her husband loved being fucked by a drunken DuPré, and though she enjoyed the show as much as the sex she got later, she began to suspect that her husband liked getting fucked by DuPré a little too much.

But those suspicions she soon set aside. For no matter how good it was forher husband, it was simply the sex that made DuPré deliver. DuPré was not about to fall in love with William. He was in it just for theintrigue, for the hell of it, for the freaky thrill, for the pussy, no matter who was wearing it. DuPré loved his women like he loved his men like he loved his drink. And on more than a few occasions, Vanessa got in on the action as well. For DuPré, having this beautiful couple, these beautiful bookends, was almost as good as a fantasy threesome with Halle and Shamar.

And DuPré was highly discreet and not curious. He came over only for sex, not conversation, not friendship, not romance. He never asked about hometowns, hobbies, or occupations, nor was any information volunteered.

But DuPré was gone now, having driven home drunk once too often, having lost his head rear-ending an eighteen-wheeler while his convertible top was down, making a mess on the 405 freeway. Gone. The one man that could keep Vanessa's man home, that would fuck him then hand him back over. Gone. And she was scared.

After DuPré, William went out often and got with God-knows-who. As wild as their times with DuPré were, their sexual encounters never occurred outside the privacy of their Ladera Heights home. They had to be very careful, for they had reputation and standing to protect. Everyone knew Reverend and Mrs. Ellerbee as the perfect couple, a shining example of love and devotion for the community and the congregation that William shepherded.

All throughout church service Vanessa listened from the front pew as herhusband preached with a fervor so intense that she could not help but think of the man he had been with last night; how good it must have been to fire him up like this, to have him prancing in the pulpit as he'd never pranced before, laughing and humming and writhing like a holy roller.

And while the church rocked to the thunder in his voice, she found herself rocking, too, shivering with fear and jealousy, moaning with an anguish those around her thought was spirit caught up by the good preacher's wife.

She broke into tears out of nowhere. She threw up her hands and wailed loudly. The tongues that she spoke in cursed her husband the reverend for who he was and how he was, and cursed herself for letting it be.

She jumped up from the pew and stomp-danced in a circle, balled up her fists, and beat on her breasts. The nurse's attendants came to her rescue and wrestled her down.

And then Reverend William James Ellerbee called on the choir to make joyful noise.

Copyright © 2007 by Stanley Bennett Clay

Customer Reviews

LOOKER: The Title Suggests a Kaleidoscope of Meanings in this Enthralling Novel
Stanley Bennett Clay takes chances: he knows he takes them and unlike Captain Scott's diaries from 1912 as he lay dying in the Antarctic in which he admits the chances turned out against him, the chances Clay takes work very much in his favor. Now with this third novel Stanley Bennett Clay shows a maturity of style and focus without a loss of the chancy topics he embraces. LOOKER simply works!

Clay introduces a huge cast of characters so rapidly yet so well defined that for a few chapters the novel seems as though it will be a series of short stories; we meet Brando, an entertainment lawyer whose celibacy is linked to his past lost love Collier; Selma Fant, the alcoholic wife of a councilman whose only child Earl-Anthony responded to his misunderstood childhood by transforming into a popular transgender singer Miss Zara; successful writer Omar who despite his longing for a relationship with Brando after his leaving the demanding Shane is a lothario `chickenhawk' unable to forego his desires despite his nearing middle age; Jeanette Bell and her lesbian lover, highly successful novelist Clymenthia Teager; Vanessa Ellerbee and her downlow husband William who craves Brando; recently divorced Dee Dempsey whose bruised heart embraces those in need; Ramon Alexander and his abused wife Charlene; and Senior Father Lacey Cannon who holds court for all the pretty gay men in his community. And yes, there are more!

The story is too fine to condense in a review. Suffice it to say that Clay connects all the dots by a central story of a murder trial over a heinous event that occurred between Ramon and Jeanette, a climactic situation steered by Brando that alters the lives of each of the characters and brings about closure to the many open wounds and secrets and lusts and stories of each of the novel's cast.

Clay has the ability to write some of the most sensuous prose about lovemaking and just plain sex between men as anyone out there: his situations and recreations of scenes are erotic and electrically charged. At the same time he is able to enter the courtroom with some of the better banter between lawyers and some pungent political and social commentary that is eloquent and deeply moving. Clay again explores the `on the downlow' particles that pepper the wealthy black community of Los Angeles (his setting for his novel), but he also dips deeply into the crises of relationships in the 21st century - finding that the concept of monogamy still rings clearly and preferably, the goal of the struggling of wandering eyes of the lookers.

And so Stanley Bennett Clay's title LOOKER could mean `handsome looking men', `stunning women', voyeurs, or those searching for that nebulous lifelong love - it all depends on the part of this kaleidoscopic novel the reader wishes to emphasize. But in the end Clay once again proves that he is capable of spinning tales both bizarre and tender, and he succeeds in every direction. This is yet another tasty novel from a writer of distinction. Grady Harp, May 07

Searching For Passion
Brando Heywood is a handsome, forty-something year old entertainment lawyer that has everything but passion and a love of his own. After the break-up of a ten year relationship, Brando is now two years celibate and lives vicariously through his promiscuous best friend Omar. Brando's professional career gets a jolt when he is asked to defend a good friend who has killed her rapist. Brando is going to have to dig deep to keep his friend out of prison, especially when the rapist is also a decorated war veteran. Omar is a writer that is constantly trying to relive his youth by messing around with twenty-year old boy-toys. He's trying to find a love that will replace the love and passion that he has for his best friend Brando. But will Omar stop playing around and profess his undying love to Brando, even if he gets rejected?

Looker is an enthralling novel by Stanley Bennett Clay. Clay skillfully brings readers into the sometimes complex world of the African-American and Latino gay and lesbian life. Brando and Omar are the two main characters but there are also several supporting characters that are an integral part to this story. This author did a wonderful job of connecting these characters to Brando and Omar which made this a widely entertaining storyline. Most of the characters in this novel were upwardly mobile professionals and didn't have the usual gay and lesbian stereotypes that are found in a lot of today's contemporary fiction storylines which was a breath of fresh air. Readers will find that there is a lot of raw emotion in this novel, especially surrounding Brando and the murder trial. You'll be rooting for Brando to win the case and for him to finally find the love and happiness that he's longed for. Looker is engaging, and thought provoking. Stanley Bennett Clay is a true master of writing.

Reviewed by Radiah Hubbert
for Urban Reviews

Mr. Clay makes me love the english language!
I have been going through a period of discovering [...] black authors, and for the most part have been pretty happy with my finds. Stanley Bennett Clay is in a league of his own. His prose is one of the most beautiful that I have ever experienced in reading. He makes me love the english language. His descriptives paint a scene, and the principle characters I found myself rooting for. I don't think there was a single character that I disliked, aside from Ramon Alexander. Mr. Clay brings you into the fictional world, and makes it hard for you to want to leave!
I strongly recommend this book!