A bawdy and entertaining view of a gay man’s midlife crisis.
A middle-aged gay New Yorker contends with toxic office politics, a brutal dating scene, and erectile dysfunction in this raucous comedy of manners.
Newly single after the breakup of his 12-year relationship, 50-year-old Manhattanite Viktor finds himself floundering in almost every aspect of life. The bars where he seeks companionship are full of young guys who ignore him—or even demand cash upfront—and he’s not attracted to older men. His friends, meanwhile, are always whining about their own problems. The publishing house where he works as an editor has been bought by a conglomerate whose executives are pursuing their vapid corporate vision statement—“quality product that finds its market”—by putting out minibooks for cellphones. His psychotherapist, Dr. S, is no help, remaining frustratingly silent while Viktor talks about his travails; worse, the doctor’s appearing unbidden in Viktor’s sex fantasies. Each of Viktor’s successes seems to be followed by a humiliating reversal. He hooks up with an attractive guy named Lloyd but gets dumped when he balks at anal sex with the well-endowed man. To get over what he sees as a hang-up, he takes a self-help class called “Get To Know Your Anus,” where he meets randy grad student Casey, but he’s filled with anxiety about his waning potency; a Viagra prescription gloriously rectifies that problem—but then sends Viktor to the emergency room with a case of morbid priapism. Ambrose’s debut novel limns Viktor’s predicament in prose that mixes cheerful lewdness, sardonic humor, and occasional touches of plangent loneliness while also sketching an atmospheric tableau of the club dating scene: “Always that loud, empty thump thump thump bouncing around the empty rooms. It’s a place to slit your wrists, not celebrate life.” Viktor is a compelling antihero, blending grumpiness with neurosis (“Am I just a cheap bastard or is there some underlying deep dark secret about not wanting to tip go-go boys?”), but he’s always aware that he’s distancing himself from everything that matters to him. There’s not much forward motion in his pratfalls, but his struggle to enjoy his journey is captivating.
A bawdy and entertaining view of a gay man’s midlife crisis.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-951057-34-3
Page Count: 301
Publisher: NineStar Press
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
