Product Description

If you liked the first volume of Between Men, you’ll love this second collection of short stories from today’s best and brightest gay writers. Editor Richard Canning is back with eighteen pieces of gay fiction from some of the most remarkable writers around, including Jim Grimsley, Mark Merlis, and Alan Hollinghurst.

There’s something for everyone. Moving beyond tales of “coming out,” stories, Between Men 2 is filled with the stories of men with something relevatory to say about the gay experience—and, moreover, the human experience.

Richard Canning is the editor of the Between Men series, a writer, and a lecturer in English and American literature at the University of Sheffield, England.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #670410 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781593501143
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Oxford-educated Canning is Lecturer in British and American Literature at the University of Sheffield, England. He review regularly for The (national) Independent newspaper in England, and writes frewuently for a range of printt media both there and in the US. He is the author of numerous articles, essays, and reviews, and two books of highly acclaimed converations with gay novelists.

Customer Reviews

A Strangely Chosen Uneven Collection
Canning, Richard (editor). "Between Men: Original Fiction by Today's Best Gay Writers", Alyson Books, 2009.

A Strangely Chosen Uneven Collection

Amos Lassen


Nineteen stories make up "Between Men" but I find it hard to understand how editor Richard Canning selected some that are excellent while some really have nothing going for them.
Several of the authors have published before and are well established and well known--Andrew Holleran, Alan Hollinghurst, Patrick Gale, Mark Merlis, Ethan Mordden, Kevin Killian, Randall Kenan, Aaron Hamburger, Jim Grimsley, John Weir-- and
Then there are those whom I have never read previously.
Andrew Holleran is one of my favorite writers and, in fact, he was my guest here in Little Rock some two years ago when he was selected to be the first openly gay writer at the Arkansas Literary Festival. His story, "Gainesville Before Noon", was a major disappointment and it really hurts me to day something negative about such a fine writer. This is a dreary and depressing story about two middle-aged men who meet online. What follows is a story that will just not let you smile.
"Highlights" by Alan Hollinghurst is about Archie who convinces his friend who is older than he is to have his hair streaked while they are vacationing in Rome. Out of a seemingly nowhere they men meet the Grotons and the story just does not move.
Yet another depressing story is "Suicide Essay" by Wayne Koestenbaum who gained literary fame with "The Queen's Throat". It takes place somewhere in the world of the dead and is about a meeting between Sylvia Plath and film auteur Fassbinder.
Jim Grimsley has one of the best stories in the collection--"The Virtual Maiden"--but I had already read it in his book of short stories, "Jesus is Sending You This Message". Grimsley can build wonderful characters and he does so once again. A woman with Downs Syndrome is hired by two men to clean their home and a very strange love triangle results
Randall Kenan's "I Thought I Heard the Shuffle of Angel's Feet" tells of Cicero meets Tony, a straight friend while on a trip to North Carolina. When the two get into a chat late at night Tony relates a dark secret to Cicero and it is easy to feel the emotion between the men. In "Down at Texas Beach" by Tennessee Jones we get a chilling look at violence and poverty that you will not soon forget. Ethan Mordden gives us a look at Christians in his story, "Fancy Our Meeting".
"Devotion" by David Levinson takes an old theme and gives new insights. Dan's lover left him for a younger man and he is better off because of it.
My favorite story in the collection is Tom House's "Career Day" and this is the first writing of his that I have read. It is about a gay writer, Don Jones, who returns to St. John the Evangelist School to speak to students on career day. He sits with two other alumni--a dentist who is a bit of a nerd and a lawyer who seems to revel in his own arrogance. No one knew that Don was a gay erotic writer as he was called in at the last minute. He has a great time explaining Melville and Dickinson to an American literature class pointing out the gay themes in both in a very blunt manner.
The blurb on the back cover says that this is a book of short stories by leading gay authors. I read a lot of gay literature and there are authors here I have never come across. By and large this is a satisfying collection and there is diversity. As I said earlier, there are both good and uplifting stories here and there are those that are real downers.

A Very Uneven Collection
When I finished reading these 19 stories, I wondered how the editor Richard Canning could have selected some that were first class and so many others that-- to be charitable-- were lackluster. He includes several previously published, well-known writers-- Andrew Holleran, Alan Hollinghurst, Patrick Gale, Mark Merlis, Ethan Mordden, Kevin Killian, Randall Kenan, Aaron Hamburger, Jim Grimsley, John Weir-- and others whose fiction I had not read before.

The most disappointing by far has to be "Gainesville Before Noon" by one of the most respected writers of gay fiction there is. I have read everything Andrew Holleran has written-- although I keep hoping against hope that he will use his real name rather than a pen name; after all he could now get married if he lived in a few of these United States-- but I would not be inclined to look up his other fiction from this story. The unnamed narrator is a sad man in his 50's who meets other sad middle-aged men in North Florida whom he finds in computer chatrooms. To a person Holleran describes them as "oval" shaped. Couldn't there have been just one sad man who was skinny or who might have gone to the gym occasionally? This story is somewhere way past dreary. Alan Hollinghurst, winner of the Booker Prize for LINE OF BEAUTY and the author of several other novels I enjoyed, doesn't fare much better. In "Highlights" the younger Archie convinces his older friend Colin, who was "thought to be duller and older than he was," to have his hair streaked while they are on holiday in Rome. About mid-way into this story, these two men run into a couple named the Grotons who-- unless I slept through the first 11 pages of the story-- apparently dropped in from another piece of fiction. Perhaps "Highlights" is a chapter in a longer work and Hollinghurst introduced them earlier although there is no indication from the editor that that is the case. In "Suicide Essay" by Wayne Koestenbaum, who wrote THE QUEEN'S THROAT, Fassbinder with a firm erection meets Sylvia Plath in the world of the dead. Need I say more?

Occasionally a writer turns a great phrase. Ethan Mordden's narrator in "Fancy Our Meeting" on Christians: "'Where I'm originally from,' I said, 'they made up most of the town. They were called Pentecostals then. My mother thought they were riffraff because they ran the radio all day and served margarine instead of butter. But I will say that they didn't cretinize religion as so many do. Jesus's spokesmen today are like Madonna's cone bra--the intention is not to enlighten but to irritate.'" Now that's funny.

The five best stories, all of which are first class in no particular order: Jim Grimsley's "The Virtual Maiden" from his recently published collection of short stories JESUS IS SENDING YOU THIS MESSAGE is as good as anything this fine writer has written. In the story two men hire a woman with Downs syndrome to clean their cluttered, messy house. A gesture of kindness on the part of the younger man, misinterpreted by the woman, makes for a bizzare love triangle that is reminiscent-- though in no way derivative-- of the best of Flannery O'Connor's short stories. Tennessee Jones' "Down at Texas Beach" is a stark rendering of both povery and anti-gay violence that goes to the bone. In Randall Kenan's "I Thought I Heard the Shuffle of Angels' Feet" (a beautiful title) Cicero on a trip to North Carolina when his car breaks down meets Tony, an ostensibly straight friend he has not seen in years who is the driver of the tow-truck. When Cicero agrees to spend the night with his old friend, Tony tells him a deep dark secret in this deeply moving story. "Cicero just stared at him, coffee cup suspended--at a ridiculous angle he would later think back to himself as he replayed and replayed and replayed this moment in his mind's eye, seeing himself seeing his old buddy as if for the first time, that morning, in the April bright North Carolina light that streamed through the lemon curtains like a children's drink. 'Oh.'" David Levinson's "Devotion" takes the too-often-written-about story of a gay man and turns it on its head. In this instance the character Dan remains monogamous while in a relationship, but his married female friend has an affair. Dan gets over his lover who has walked out on him for a younger man and is changed for the better, something that does not always happen in a short story. Too often in two many short stories not much at all happens. I liked this one so much that I ordered the author's short story collection MOST OF US ARE HERE AGAINST OUR WILL. Finally "Career Day" (Tom House) literally sparkles. Don Jones, class of '80, and a gay writer who has been published in MEN ON MEN stories returns, wearing Kenneth Cole sandals, to St. John The Evangelist Catholic School to speak at career day for students. He is joined by two other graduates, a geeky dentist and an arrogant lawyer. Don's speech is funnier than it has a right to be. Nobody is aware that he is a gay writer since a pharmacist alumnus cancelled at the last minute so he has a good time with the American literature class, reminding them that "the epic that Melville really wanted to write was "Hawthorne's D--k" and calling Emily Dickinson "the dyke of Amherst." "Well, he didn't know if she was, but he liked to call her that as an antidote to 'belle' and 'nun.'" This is the one story that I would read again and again, the best compliment I could give it.