Product Description

These eight stories by a promising new writer cover a variety of themes, but all touch on the lives of gay men, mostly living in Wales. They explore issues of particular sexual relationships, familial tolerance, and adolescent sexual identity. John Sam Jones studied at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley in the early 80s, and worked for a while in San Francisco before returning to his home in North Wales. These stories present a cross-section of a new embattled minority within an old one-Welsh gay men.... Jones makes them all vivid and sympathetic.""-Booklist

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2077216 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 92 pages

From Publishers Weekly
An interracial gay couple baby-sits the two young children of a friend for a weekend; a high school boy grapples with his emergent sexuality while looking for support from the conservative adults in his life; and a mentally disturbed woman seeks vengeance against the brother who slept with her husband, in John Sam Jones's Welsh Boys Too. These intriguing short stories look at homosexuality through the lens of Welsh culture, subtly linking homophobia to other kinds of discrimination racism, religious intolerance with objectivity and sensitivity.

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From Booklist
Packing eight stories into a slim paperback, Jones is a paragon of economy. In the five-page "But Names Will Never Hurt Me," he gives us everything necessary to understand why the 17-year-old protagonist, who has already made his affectional choices, decides that "Rent boy . . . didn't sound so bad." In nine unhurried pages, "The Magenta Silk Thread" reveals exactly why a 77-year-old war widow is attending her best friend's son's wedding and taking the train rather than getting a lift to it. Altogether, these stories present a cross-section of a new embattled minority within an old one--Welsh gay men. Jones' examples embrace both terms of their identity. Several proudly speak Welsh, and all must come to terms with dour Welsh Calvinism as they do the public dance of appearances that being gay often requires. Jones makes them all vivid and sympathetic, not least by changing narrative perspective from story to story, from first-person subjective to third-person omniscient and even to second-person imperative. Ray Olson
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Review
These intriguing short stories look at homosexuality through the lens of Welsh culture. --Publishers Weekly

These stories present a cross-section of a new embattled minority within an old one -- Welsh gay men.... Jones makes them all vivid and sympathetic --Booklist

Customer Reviews

A different world
With a subtle and graceful precision, Jones renders the lives of gay men and boys in Wales and of Welsh heritage. Through varying viewpoints, he explores notions of family, homophobia, coming out, and more in this excellent collection of short stories. Some of the stories tease and beg for more, and there are a few that are just not as compelling as others. All told, this is a remarkable book that will interest anyone curious about other cultures.