Product Details
South Beach: The Novel

South Beach: The Novel
By Brian Antoni

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Featured on "All Things Considered" 8/6/2008

Product Description

Gabriel Tucker is a globe-trotting, trust fund–endowed twenty-nine-year-old who suddenly finds himself penniless and alone in the world, except for an old Miami Beach apartment building named the Venus De Milo Arms, the last thing of value left to him by his now-vanished family. Lacking skills or resources, he heads to Miami Beach to reconstruct his life, finding himself neighbors with an unlikely mix of tenants: an elderly Holocaust survivor, a lip-synching drag queen, a cynical two-bit gossip columnist, and a rebellious young performance artist who will eventually capture his heart. Within days, Gabriel is thrust into the outrageous world of South Beach, Miami of the nineties: temptations, quick fortunes, mountains of drugs, notorious murders, nonstop sex, and beautiful women (and men) for sale (or rent) are the order of the day. He is a ringside witness to the excesses and intrigues of Italian fashion empires, Cuban refugee supermodels, rapacious German developers, old-fashioned crooked politicians, and a cast of characters that would make Caligula blush. It is in South Beach that Gabriel will eventually discover the long-buried mysteries of his family and find a soul he never imagined he had and a love he never dreamed he deserved.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #158254 in Books
  • Published on: 2008-01-21
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 288 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Gabriel Tucker's gargantuan trust fund has allowed him to spend his life traveling and partying, so he's none too pleased to receive a letter informing him that his uncle has blown all the money in the trust, and the only thing Gabriel has left is a crumbling hotel on South Beach. Gabriel finds the Venus De Milo Arms inhabited by a lip-synching tranny, an AIDS-afflicted gossip columnist, an elderly woman obsessed with her wardrobe and a performance artist named Marina, whom Gabriel promptly falls in love with. Their lives intertwine along with those of a Cuban refugee-cum-supermodel and a fashion designer obsessed with making South Beach's gaudy dilapidation the new chic. As Marina struggles with the past that keeps her from returning Gabriel's affection and the Venus de Milo Arms is threatened with becoming the next pile of rubble on the road to progress, Gabriel starts to realize that the old hotel may be the only place in the world that he can call home. Antoni delights in describing in pornographic detail the absurdities of South Beach (drugs, sex, freakish locals), but he never gets beneath South Beach's chipped veneer. The light treatment has its moments, but it isn't quite satisfying. (Feb.)
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New York Times Book Review
"South Beach: The Novel, Brian Antoni's candy-colored and warmhearted second work of fiction, would make a terrific opera . . . Rich with club scenes and descriptions of off-beat forms of physical congress . . . he means the book to encapsulate the social makeup of a city he clearly loves."

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
"Antoni might easily have written a big, dense `city novel.' But there is an undeniable aptness to Antoni's decision to turn the story into a neon fantasy, for perhaps fantasy best reflects the reality of a place like South Beach. He makes the most of it: All the major characters are beautiful, talented, incredibly lucky, and despite their bad habits, good at heart. Through various reversals and conflicts, they make us care about them as they wend toward a fairy-tale ending."

Customer Reviews

A great read4
I loved this book. Brian Antoni captures South Beach at a moment when the tide was turning. The characters are incredibly real and entertaining. This book is one part fiction and one part history book. It's sad to think that all of those amazing art deco buildings were nearly destroyed.

HOT,STEAMY, SEXY5
I couldn't put it doun. Can anything really be that hot. I think I have to take a shower! Can't wait to read his other books. His characters are so real. I feel as if they are friends of mine from the past.

Great book hot and cool5
Brian Antoni wrote a surprisingly fun book about South Beach. Its sexy and sad , happy in part but also complex and tender. It shows the gay and strait world and how they mix. I really recomend reading it.