Pulp Books

It's not just recently scientists and people who care about the environment have talked against clearing rain forests. How could one not be moved by those seemingly endless stretches of trees in the southern tropical countries of Brazil and Malaysia? After all, they're home to tons of plants, bugs, birds and animals, along with some native peoples.

What's recent is the attention to another kind of rain forest, called the coastal temperate. It's a rain forest that needs cool summers. It also needs a total rainfall each year of more than 55 inches. This kind of rain forest used to be found on the west sides of continents. Only Africa and Antarctica never had them. Ireland and Scotland used to be famous for them. Norway still has them in pockets. There's also quite a bit along Chile, New Zealand, and Tasmania. But the greatest of them all runs from Kodiak Island in the Alaska gulf south, through the Alaska panhandle and Canada's British Columbia coast to Vancouver Island.

Alaska's rain forests are a breathtaking sight. They're also good for the world. They build up and store more organic material than any other forest on earth. Some of that material drops into the nearby ocean. That's why Alaska's waters are full of the most scrumptious shellfish, salmon and halibut around.

And yet for over 40 years some of those forests were logged quickly and uncontrollably. Other forests were likewise logged some 20 years later. Salmon-spawning streams and black-tailed deer homes were ruined. Poorly built logging roads brought about landslides and brought in poachers. Caves underneath the trees were an archaeologist's treasure chest. But cutting down the trees caved in caverns and buried a part of our world history.

By the end of the 20th century, almost 1 million acres worth of trees were gone. It wasn't just muskeg, conifer and alpine scrub. It was western red cedar, western hemlock, Sitka spruce, and Alaska yellow cedar. The sad thing's no matter the tree, it was turned into pulp or 2-by-4's. That meant a lot of big, old, strong, tall trees cut down to make low-priced wood products that could have been made from lower-quality wood from elsewhere. Fewer trees could have been cut down and more money could have been made if the goal'd instead been turning out custom and specialty wood products for higher prices.

Pressure from nature supporters, native peoples and area residents put an end to TONGASS PULP POLITICS AND THE FIGHT FOR THE ALASKA RAIN FOREST might be won in the 21st century. Adventure packages, cruise ships, food production, handcrafts, small-scale custom and specialty logging, and tourist accommodations keep people employed and communities afloat. Forest service workers are cleaning up streams, redoing bad roads, and watching second-growth trees. So for the time being, there's more respect to what Virignia Tech master gardeners call the wildlands-urban interface of where people and nature meet.

Author Kathie Durbin's book is well-organized. It has clear examples and telling photos. It ends with a good bibliography and index. It's aimed at nature-supporting and community-building readers.

Kathie Durbin reveals the irresponsible and corrupt practices of the U.S. government, the Forest Service, and the pulp mills it was in bed with in Southeast Alaska, and how their destructive logging practices politicized a whole contingent of people to stop the decimation of our last temperate rainforest. Read "Tongass" and your blood will boil over what happened there, and what is still happening in many of our other forests today.

I have lived in the Tongass,, The Tongass is being sold out to the tour package industry,, this industry is no different than any other. The people who live here through its most harsh winters are being dictated to by feel good (my Disney Land) visitors. Many wonderful Alaskan familys have been displaced because of this myth.

Journalist Kathie Durbin has written one of the finest investigative works that I have read. I'm a lawyer with biology and chemistry degrees and I find the extensive endnotes, legal references and her penchant to seek out and cite primary sources refreshing.

There is nothing here that supports any label of the author, save that of professional. This work has disturbed me for years. I have become more active in the fight to preserve the ONLY temperate rain forest left in North America because of her clear and concise use of well-supported facts.

The most disturbing fact not in the book is that the lumber industry is now nothing but a byproduct of the pulp industry.

Ms. Durbin shows us how Salmon spawning grounds destroyed out of greed and carelessness by logging right up to the spawning streams and destroying the shade that the Salmon's Redd's require, and by the disposal of low pH waste into bays and estuaries and by the effects of runoff from clearcuts (damaging sub-arctic land and water: a fragile environment, indeed).

There is no room to debate the facts...only the policy. Calling this work or its author names simply illustrates the old adage: if you can't win on the facts attack the fact-finder.

Read this book. ANWAR may be the cause celeb today, but the damage to the Tongass is going on NOW.

As a 50 year resident of Ketchikan, I was curious how a "tree hugger" would portray the fight for the Tongass--known in these parts as the fight for a reasonable standard of living. Ms. Durbin quotes environmental organizer Donald Ross on page 172: "It doesn't take much, when you're a congressman from Kansas and you've never heard of the Tongass, to get you to vote for trees." When all is said and done, that was the tactic of the environmentalists. On page 246, she says, "Most who did [find job after the Sitka mill closed] were forced to make do with a lower standard of living than they had become accustomed to on pulp mill wages." How easily she dismisses the plight of those who live in the Tongass. There's a lot Ms. Durbin doesn't mention like the fact that only the wealthy and refugees from the 60's can afford to experience up close & personal the pristine beauty of the nation's First Park. The environmentalists have won. Sierra Club, kiss my ax!

If you know who Procrustes was, and what "procrustean" means, then you'll be at home in this book. That mythical character is alive and well, but his modus operandi has changed since Greek times: now s/he's the person who asks "Can't we all just get along together?" when what s/he really means is, "Why aren't you more like me and how can I force you to become so without being perceived as a monster?"

This novel is part of a line of great works of art that show, in very entertaining terms, how individuals are often destroyed by the helping systems that are supposed to protect them. I think of "The Consul" by Gian Carlo Menotti as a similarly great work with the same timely overarching theme. This is not to say that if you loved Menotti's "The Consul", you'll love Schulman's book - but you *might* if you are willing to re-read the book until you 'get it'.

About the humor: Wonderful! but I missed a lot of it at first read because there are so many other things that grabbed my attention. Examples: Eva's riffs on voice mail systems at large companies; and there are screamingly funny sentences all throughout the book, one being something like 'I can't believe f****** Michele disconnected me!' (Michele being a sour and uninformed operator at some unnamed company.) Some writers would get a chuckle out of such a line; the way Schulman writes, it is so beautifully set up that I laughed, in pain, out loud, on the subway, for a long time. People were suspicious: "What is wrong with that man that he is laughing in public in front of strangers."

How can something so humiliating feel so cathartic?

"The Child" is rooted in a set of Gay/Lesbian experience that seems pretty common to me, so "What happens next, and Why" made total sense. That said, Schulman has a whole cosmology that some people won't get at first, even if they're headed in the same direction already. For me, her books feel more insightful as I get older, so maybe they will for you, too. Throughout this book, people throw in the towel in different ways - and only a few of them move forward again. If you care about sex in America in any way, her books are worthwhile reading. DISCLAIMER: This being American, I need to make it clear that I have contempt for pedophiles and that this book did not make me more sympathetic to them. What it did make me realize is that media stories about them are simplified so that they lose all connection to reality and, as a result of that, we as a society lose all hope of addressing the outcomes. That's partly why we in such dire straits as a country.

I wanted so much to read this book. The existence of an incisive novel about the terrible unfairnesses which gay youth commonly face seemed to promise the telling of a difficult but necessary story. There is still too much discomfort and nervous throat-clearing around the idea that anyone younger than college age could possibly be gay, or have romantic or sexual urges of any stripe. But despite two attempts, I couldn't get beyond the first twenty or thirty pages of The Child because of Sarah Schulman's difficulty in making most of the characters in this book at all believable. I know she does have the ability to write well and do justice to a character; the inner monologue of Eva waiting in line at the health clinic was sharp and satisfying and fully-rounded. But this only emphasized the strange contrast to the clunky lines spoken by Stew and his lover and his parents and the police and most of the other characters. It seemed that Schulman was possibly unfamiliar with how a high-school-aged boy might talk, and the parents and other adults seemed like caricatures designed to get the reader to dislike them as quickly as possible. Trying to be charitable, I found myself thinking "Well, this is a noble effort for a first-time writer," only to find that Schulman had published seven previous novels.

I've seen nothing but praise for "The Child," and for Schulman in general, wherever I've looked, and indeed the subjects she addresses are serious and well worth considering. Perhaps my aversion to her writing style is a peculiar matter of taste, but after finding myself for page after page mentally re-working every line of dialog I read, or trying in vain to imagine those written words actually coming spontaneously out of the mouth of any real person, I finally, with heavy heart, had to give up.

I took Sarah Schulman's book "The Child" with me on a little August retreat to the northern shore of Lake Superior. I suppose that I could have taken something a little less cumbersome -- although it is a thin little novel, its subject matter and the pathetic characters that populate the story weigh the reader down sufficiently enough.

Stew is a fifteen-year old young man in a dysfunctional family who has finally found happiness in the arms of a couple of men he has met through an internet connection. The two men, David and Joe, are a gay couple who sincerely care for Stew, but underestimate just how unstable the boy actually is. An alternate thread of the story involves Eva, a woman who we first meet in a clinic as she undergoes a humiliating breast examination. She is fearful of a possible cancer diagnosis, she is lamenting professional failures, she is mourning her family's complete alienation from her (due to her lesbian lifestyle), she wonders about the stability of her relationship with Mary, her lover, and she is almost certain that she is being molested by this doctor who is examining her breast. Yes -- all of this is going on in her head during the course of this procedure, and it is no wonder that the activities and dialogue that take place in the room all seem to come to Eva out of some sort of fog. And that, ultimately, is the hook of Ms Schulman's novel. The inner dramas that are going on within the major characters of her story tend to be just as prominent as the external dramas. In fact, sometimes they take over. The characters find themselves completely lost in their musings until something drags them out, and you can almost see them blinking and shaking the cobwebs out of their heads. As a reader, I was initially frustrated with this. There were complete sections of dialogue that seemed completely disconnected -- a character would say something, but would receive a response that seemed to have nothing to do with the thread of the conversation. NO ONE IS ACTUALLY LISTENING. They are too absorbed in their inner conversations. And, of course, that is Schulman's point.

Eva's and Stew's stories begin to intersect when David and Joe are ultimately outed by Stew -- a police detective takes advantage of Stew's confusion and fear and coerces him into confessing their trysts. David is arrested, and Eva is invited to join the legal team that will attempt to defend him. As she and her legal partner organize their defense, Stew's nightmare intensifies. Rather than receive any form of compassion from his family, he discovers that they are totally clueless and even scared of him. They want him out of the house, which of course fills him with enormous fear. With David and Joe out of the picture now, he literally has nowhere to go. In desperation, he attempts to forge a bond with his young nephew, Viktor, with disastrous results. It is another scene that involves loud exchanges, but absolutely no real communication. Stew is accused of molesting Viktor, and although he did no such thing, he can't seem to defend himself. And, this ultimately sets up what will be the tragic ending of the novel.

As Eva learns about Stew through her involvement with David's case, the cruel irony of this whole story becomes painfully apparent. The one person who probably could have given Stew what he needed -- understanding, clarity, compassion -- is someone that he never gets an opportunity to meet. This sad, sad truth is echoed in David's last words to Stew in the final pages of the book. "Save yourself, Stewie." The boy is, literally, all alone. And, he admits this with his mournful response, "I don't know how."

The 'child' of the (ironic) title is Stew, a typical, lonely, 15 year old gay male living with his self-involved parents. He meets a gay male couple though the internet and starts building a full relationship (including sexual elements) with them. For a brief moment he believes that he has found happiness and acceptance - perhaps life is worth living after all? On the way back from a visit with them, he is the subject of a entrapment scene is a public toilet; arrested, he is taken to a police station whereupon he is manipulated into revealing where he had been. The gay couple are arrested on charges of 'child abuse', and Stew's nightmare begins:

"He was surrounded by walls, his family, the police. No one was flexible. No one had a reasonable explanation for their behavior, and no one had to."

A variety of characters and sub-plots populate this novel, with particular precedence given to Eva, a lesbian woman and a lawyer, who becomes involved in defending one of the partners in the gay couple detained on 'child abuse' charges. Indeed, the novel focuses not so much on the subsequent legal processes, but rather on the background cast of characters involved: Eva; her relationship with her partner Mary; Stew's family; the social worker assigned to Stew; and Hockey, an HIV+ lawyer working alongside Eva. This broader perspective enables the author to capture her primary theme: exposing the delusions that individuals create in order to satisfy their own egoistic desires.

Consequently, the various characters' façades are stripped away, and the author presents a myriad of iconoclastic images: the child who is not merely 'a child' but a human, with rights and desires; the parents whose 'love' for their child is instead a need to propagate their own sense of self-worth; the child welfare infrastructure that does not genuinely care about the child; the lesbian social activist who desires love more than a successful outcome; the law enforcement officers whose hatred of their perceived enemy far eclipses any professed concern for the child's well-being; the HIV+ lawyer who is unsympathetic to any hint of weakness in others; the judicial system that allows a young male to bear criminal responsibility for his actions but denies him the right to love freely.

Clearly this perspective will be unsettling to readers unused to confronting the darker reality of life. Nevertheless - and indeed, for this reason - the novel deserves the broadest possible audience. 'The Child' is an important work; as with Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness', it is concerned to challenge the cozy self/group delusions that mainstream society most desires to cherish - and accordingly serves as a courageous assertion of independent writing, which is all-too-often suppressed in favor of promulgating society's false idealism. Sarah Schulman's novel is written with fluid, fearless originality, and is highly recommended.

Stewie Mulcahey is a shy and troubled 15 year old gay boy from a dysfunctional home, who finds his only acceptance and comfort in the arms of David, a 39 year old man he met through an internet chat room. When his parents find out, Stewie is coerced by the police into testifying against the adult, although the boy insists he always initiated their contacts and was not forced into anything. His home life deteriorates further, with his parents and sister making it clear they want him out of the house, and they become upset when a social worker refuses to send him to a juvenile detention home. The situation escallates until an episode in which he is charged as an adult with murder in the death of his young nephew, whom they suspected him of molesting.



One of the two attorneys for David, the adult charged in the molestation, is Eva Krasner, who is simultaneously going through some tough times with his lover, Mary, and facing a possible health crisis. She is working with gay attorney Hockey Notkin, who seems a bit bitter and distracted since losing his lover to AIDS. They struggle with the dilemma of creating a defense for David without simultaneously pushing more of the blame on Stewie who, while he is not their client, they feel is more of a victim of his family's and the justice system's homophobia than anything else.



Sarah Schulman is a well-known lesbian writer who has a reputation for edgy works, and this is no exception. She tackles a difficult and controversial subject head on, but with a skillfully light touch that doesn't prejudge or challenge the opinions of the reader. The novel reads like a crime mystery, and catches the readers attention every step of the way.

I bought this book because I'm from northern Minnesota and thought it would be interesting, perhaps even clever and funny. Instead I found it unoriginal, poorly written, poorly edited, and not entertaining in the least. Furthermore, it bears little or no resemblance to the region other than place names.

Living here in Minnesota, I was drawn to this book. The stories are interesting, but the editing, oy vey! Typos galore; sorry to be nit-picky, but I was an English minor. The last story of the book is the best, the characters are well fleshed-out, and I can feel the late winter chill that only Minnesotans/Wisonsinites know about! Not quite Ellroy, but a worthy effort.

I can't tell you how much I delighted in "The Devil you Say"--its descriptions, style, juxtaposed thoughts--I read it in the middle of the night and had belly laughs (hope I didn't wake the neighbors). The writing throughout is tremendous,with surprises in perception, interesting transformations--I really liked that quality, as well as Thomas Sparrow's low-key cleverness. Congratulations!

This book - of a regional interest - caught my eye and I'm enjoying it. The characters seem vividly drawn and Sparrow has a knack for describing northern Minnesota. But what is driving me CRAZY is the lack of editing! He has misspelled words (your instead of you're), one character's name is Virginia Burns, later referred to as Virginia Bruns, and his characters call each other by the wrong names. I know this is nit-picky, but it really detracts from an otherwise smooth read. It's making me want to take up a blue pencil as I read this.

Why wasn't this book edited - or at least PROOFREAD - better?

If you like pulp fiction.. stories about people who screw up in spectacular ways... these four stories are good reading. Thomas Sparrow writes about desparados who don't know how to do the next right thing to dig out of the pit they helped someone else dig for them. Even though the the stories are fast-paced, there's something sad about the people Sparrow writes about. I'm quite sure I've met some of them before, too. I'd be interested in what others have to say about the book and the writer. I have a feeling he's on to something.

If you grew up reading, and loving, those great old DC science fiction comics of the 50's and 60's then you'll love this book. It is a nice little sampler of such comics as Tommy Tomorrow, Captain Comet, Star Hawkins, Space Cabby, Adam Strange, Space Ranger, the Atomic Knights, plus some really good general science-fiction themed stories. If anything, the printing is brighter and sharper than the originals were when they were first published. Other than the nostalgia value, these are some very good stories and some excellent retro art work (though it was anything but retro back then.) Funny, some of this stuff is more futuristic looking than anything you see nowdays.
My only disappointment was that my all time favorite sci-fi comic story "Brain Robbers of Satellite X" wasn't included. I got over it though- unlike some reviewers who didn't get their favorites....

I truly enjoyed seeing some of the classic science fiction comics stories from DC comics past. 33 stories in just 223 pages! They did know how to get to the point back then. The stories range from the years 1946 to 1981 and include just about every DC artist, writer and character that was involved in their space comics. Space Ranger, Adam Strange, The Atomic Knights, Tommy Tomorrow, Space Cabby and even Ultra the Multi-Alien are there, as well as a number of non series stories. Mind you, you don't get a lot of any of them. I for one would like to see the Atomic Knight reprinted in it's entirety... But I will take what I can get. There are also examples of the writing and art work of Gardner Fox, Kirby, Binder, Kubert. etc. Like I said just about all of them.I found this a very entertaining bit of nostalgia.

I ordered this volume, with expectations that I was going to get a selection of the best of Adam Strange material. Apparently, unknown to the editors, Mystery in Space became uniquely sucessful due to it's long term hosting of ADAM STRANGE in the 1960s, not due to it's secondary stories and certainly not due to the few science fiction stories they reprinted from twenty years later when the magazine had virtually no circulation.
Don't get me wrong, I like the silver age secondary stories, but they don't really have much to do with Mystery in Space per se and could have occured in Strange Adventures or whatever as fillers. Adam Strange is synonymous with MiS, and it's dumb to waste a celebration of MiS on a hodgepodge of other minor stories.
NOTE to DC:
We need a "Best of Mystery in Space with Adam Strange" from the Silver Age, or better yet an "Adam Strange Archives".
A Complete collection of the Atomic Knights silver age stories would be great also, as one of the minor series which had something special to offer.

I find it interesting to read old comic stories of the past. Unfortunitaly many of the short sci-fi stories of the 40s, 50s, and 60s that are presented in this volume are just a little to dull for my tastes.

This collection was by no means bad, it's just that I found most of the stories collected here to be bland or semi-interesting.

Interesting for sentimental reasons would be a perfect way for me to put it.

I'll rate it 3 stars out of 5. Based on the Amazon rating system this falls below the mandatory 4 star level that makes a book a worthwile read.

Unless you have a strong need to revisit past comics of the 40s, 50s, and 60s, then I would suggest you skip this book.

For many years the genre of horror fiction has been almost exclusively written by heterosexuals for heterosexuals. These stories, typically involve a female victim and a male antagonist. However in this new millennium, when the line that separates gay from straight has become more and more ambiguous, art had begun to imitate life as we are now presented with an anthology of horror stories in which the protagonists as well as the victims are very clearly homosexual.

I first read Queer Fear (2000) in early 2001 after coming across it in a Bookstore I frequented. I read it from cover to cover a number of times, until I had portions of it committed to memory. So, I was extremely excited when I discovered that a second anthology had been compiled into Queer Fear II.

Queer Fear II gets off to a great start with its first story, Bugcrush. It concerns a subject that anyone, gay or straight, can easily identify with, one's first crush. I instantly sympathized with Ben the high school student as he agonized over his own desire for Grant, the object of his crush. When Grant invites Ben over to his house one day, it seems that Ben's dream is about to come true only to have that dream descend into a nightmare of date rape and murder in a most gruesome manner.

David Coffey's On Being a Fetish, gives us a glimpse of the afterlife for Chuck, who died 20 years prior and wanders his hometown as a lonely spirit. A young man described as an Eminem wannabe draws Chuck's attention and interest after an erotic episode with a ouija board. The two begin an unlikely relationship using the ouija board in a most unusual way. The relationship goes to new levels as Chuck basically becomes a voyeur to a willing Eminem's nightly "bedtime" ritual. Other than invoking a sense of fear, the purpose of this story seems to be to disgust the reader with it's description of necrophilia; however, it also serves as a reminder that the need for love follows us even past the grave itself, and that (at least for Chuck)that search is no more easier in death than it is in life.

Other stories such as Gay Town by Robert Boyckuk, make little if any sense at all. Rather than a horror story, the author seems to be making a statement against remaining in the closet rather than living one's life openly. In the end the central mystery goes unexplained, and the reader is left without any sense of closure. Although a good story in and of itself Poppy Z. Brite's Bayou de la Mere, in no way can be considered horror by any definition of the word. Perhaps it's inclusion in Queer Fear II was meant to increase sales by drawing in the authors fans. Bayou de la Mere would likely be more comfortable in a book of gay erotica.

I really wanted to like this book, I really did. However, like many things in life, it simply does not stand up to the original. While it has a few exceptional stories, the mediocre/bad ones are more numerous. In the end, it simply is not worth the time, effort, or expense to weed through the drivel in order to get to the stories worthy of one's attention and interest.

This collection builds on the success of its predecessor. It's a tall order to put together an anthology like this, and Michael Rowe does an excellent job of assembly. What is Queer Horror anyway? How do we define it? Is it just ghost, vampire and monster stories that contain gay and lesbian characters? If this is the case, then we must be extremely broad in our inclusion. Perhaps Queer Horror is more about a perspective, a thrill or sense of loathing that stands outside the norm?

In Rowe's case, I feel that the latter definition is more appropriate. Over and over again, the stories in Queer Fear 2 take us away from the norm, inviting us to be a character on the outside looking in, a perspective that is only too familiar for glbt readers. And in this outsider perspective we find true horror, that which degrades us, dehumanizes us, which sets us up for failure. Repeatedly we see ordinary glbt characters put into extraordinary circumstances, with horrifying results. In C. Mark Umland's "Dead in the Water," we witness the horror of a gay man caught in a failing heterosexual marriage, desperately trying to come to terms with... himself. In Scott Treleaven's "Bugcrush," (which heads the collection and was one of my favorites) we find the teenage roots of many well-known queer addictions - drugs, sex, indulgence. The creeping sense of familiarity we gain at Ben's crush on Grant morphs from teenage nostalgia to adult sexual excess, all within the confines of a backyard shed. Here suddenly is the obsession that started it all, plotted before us in all it's skin-crawling detail.

More than just another horror anthology, glbt readers of all genres will find some fresh perspectives and some well-constructed stories in this volume.

Building on the success of the first volume, Michael Rowe has brought together some familiar and new authors for this anthology of horror fiction featuring gay men and two stories featuring lesbians. Poppy Z. Brite brings us a Gothic story of two gay men in a Louisiana bayou that is connected to some of her other works. In Michael Thomas Ford's "Night of the Werepuss", a woman finds that her vagina has literally grown teeth. The stories by Robert Boyczuk, Nalo Hopkinson, and C. Mark Umland tantalize readers, while those by David Coffey and Scott Treleaven are disturbingly erotic. The final story, "The Narrow World" by Gemma Files, can be compared to some of Clive Barker's work, but with a distinct twist. While I think this volume is not as potent as the first, "Queer Fear II" is a marvelous companion to it that will send readers off to locate more by these twenty-two authors. "Queer Fear II" won a Lambda Literary Award, and is a finalist for the Spectrum Awards, honoring the best in gay and lesbian fantasy and science fiction.

Though thoroughly disappointed by the first Queer Fear anthology, I picked up QF2 full of hope that the ratio of good stories to mediocre/bad stories would surpass that of QF1. Unfortunately, QF2 does not improve upon the first collection. Most of the stories are flat, with thesaurus-styled words that fail not only to produce horror, but also fail to provide any sense of time, place, atmosphere or emotional punch. There are, thankfully, two exceptions offered up here. Poppy Brite's piece, "Bayou de la Mere", though hardly horror in even the loosest definition of the word (it's inclusion, no doubt, designed to increase sales) does evoke a sensual yet real atmosphere and presents some interesting characters. The other is David Coffey's "On Being A Fetish" which is hands-down the best piece in the anthology and a smashingly good short story in its own right. Coffey give us a new spin on Ouija boards and tells his story in a simple but descriptive manner that manages to give us atmosphere, strong characters, and some dark laughs along the way. Coffey is certainly a writer whose work I will search out in the future. Other than those two pieces, though, QF2 falls into mediocrity. If this is the best gay horror out there, I would be shocked and disappointed.

After reading the editorial and Amazon reviews, I had high hopes that this book would provide thoughtful insight from a unique perspective. His narrative reveals more about his partners than about himself and ultimately I found myself more interested in the people he came into contact with than in him. The closest he gets to "insight" is by providing commentary on other writings rather than commentary on his own assumptions, motivations and experiences. In fact, he uses the word "entitlement" for the first time on page 241, with only 10 pages left to the end of the book, and then retreats into the same strategy of emotional distancing by telling someone else's story and quoting someone else's text (an appropriation that itself can be considered colonialist). He spends more time presenting himself as the exception to the rice queen stereotype (thereby leaving the stereotype untouched), rather than considering how he may be perpetuating the stereotype himself.

I was glad to see that he didn't spend too much time on "white guilt", but would have loved to see a broader range of emotions- about himself- exhibited in the book. I would have loved to see him struggle more, either by redefining and reclaiming the Rice Queen label or by talking about the inner conflict of shame/pride/delight/frustration of falling in love outside your race. He also describes each of his individual relationships and encounters as if there were no common themes to how he entered into and broke them off. He also seems to differentiate the class/power difference between his (younger, poor)Asian and (sometimes older, sometimes more affluent) Asian-Canadian partners as if to dismantle or excuse himself from the Rice Queen stereotype.

In short, his analysis lacked personalization and evaluation. There was a striking difference between the First Person narrative and Third Person analysis, thereby putting a greater (and artificial) distance between himself and the stereotype. In those few passages where he does acknowledge his own "racist behavior", he does so in passing. This could have been a whole chapter unto itself. His narrative proved to be more a description of the Rice Queen phenomenon, and not an honest, reflective evaluation of the good, the bad and the ugly of his experience of the phenomenon.

My recommendations would be that he not depend on quotes from other writers to express his feelings (there is a certain entitlement that comes from this type of emotional distancing) and that he write an entire book based on the last paragraph of page 241, the one paragraph that contained personal narrative, personal analysis and personal evaluation.

Part autobiography, part titillating sex novel, part scholarly treatise, "The Rice Queen Diaries: A Memoir" deals with a subject that is obviously very close to the heart of the author: being a gay white male attracted primarily to young-looking Asian men, which is a "rice queen" in gay slang.

The writer traces his attraction chronologically, from his early years in a small Canadian town outside Vancouver, which was best known as being the location shoot for low-budget American films. It was also closest to the site of a Japanese internment camp during World War II, which the author found out his uncle had a hand in running. He conjectures that this knowledge may have triggered an early curiousity about Asians, but his own budding sexuality was solely responsible for his attraction to them. After relocating to the larger city of Vancouver, he is able to more openly pursue his interests as a gay man, and becomes involved in one of the "Long Yang" clubs, designed for those attracted to gay Asian men. Having already had many encounters with young men from various East Asian countries, he then becomes the proverbial "kid in a candy store" when he takes an extended vacation in Thailand and Vietnam, where he eventually realizes that the numerous sexual partners he has are the result of economic transactions born of the difference between the cultures of the individuals involved.

For those wanting more information than his personal observations, the author includes numerous references to scholarly works on the culture of countries he visits, as well as psychological studies concerning the Interracial atrractions involved. He also makes a realistic assessment of his own behavior in such interactions, and doesn't like what he sees. By the time he is halfway through a later working visit to Thailand, he greatly curtails his sexual encounters, spending more time socializing with other expatriates, which he suggests left him open to find the one individual with whom he is currently partnered.

The book was interesting to me, now five years removed from a three year relationship with a slightly younger man from Taiwan. The balance of scholarly analysis and retelling of the author's exploits make it difficult to keep the book as one cohesive work, but the author seems to strike an ideal balance to make the book of interest to readers, regardless of whether you share the type of attraction discussed or perhaps are the subject of it yourself. I'll give it four stars out of five.

By MARK V. ROSE, Author of BANGKOK, OH BOY!
Daniel Gawthrop's Rice Queen Diaries is more than a memoir. Perhaps confession would be more apt. The largest section reveals sexual encounters and interactions between himself, a farang (Thai for foreigner) sex tourist from Vancouver, Canada and a barrage of interesting Southeast Asian men. But here and there throughout the book, the author's keen intellect catches up with his libido, incorporating fascinating, and very welcome cultural, anthropological, historical and sociological observations and information.
Exploring his obsessions with "Rice Queendom," Gawthrop is generous and honest in his revelations. For the un-initiated, or if one doesn't know, although considered a pejorative by some, a "rice queen" is a gay westerner who delights in and seeks Asian men. Gawthrop's passion is king-sized.
Early in the book, Gawthrop tells of his boyhood crush on Bruce Lee, how as a ten-year-old he even took up judo to be like the sexy kung fu artist. It didn't take long before he realized he wanted less to be Bruce Lee than to have him.
Sent to a private school in the ninth grade, Gawthrop pleasantly discovers that many of the students were kids from Chinese immigrant parents. He witnessed how one of them, "Jackson," was given a hazing one night by four, boozed-up, white 12th grade jocks. Lights out, the older boys surrounded his bed in the dorm and held him down while the other boys in the room feigning sleep, watched what turned out to be a kind of erotic initiation rite. Then all five, Jackson included, smoked cigarettes and joked. It left a lasting memory on the impressionable young Gawthrop.
Getting past such reflective, childhood experiences, Gawthrop then tells how he went to Vancouver in his early twenties where he experienced the lustful pangs and pining of a young, adult gay man. He moves into Vaseline Towers and his tale begins to take force. In "Hongcouver," the author visits the bars and baths, experiencing abundant sex with a variety of men--mostly Asian. He calls his attraction to them "yellow fever" and, indeed, it does seem at times to be an ailment! Woven into the highly spiced account is a succinct, fascinating background of the Chinese immigrant presence in Western Canada. They, like the migrant Chinese who came to California, built the trans-continental railroads. Such moments of respite give a welcome breather to the rampant sex--one may even say an official pardon.
The author goes to Bangkok, works for a major English language Thai newspaper and vacations in Pattaya, Chiang Mai and Vietnam. At that point, he becomes almost a slave to his obsessions.
The Rice Queen Diaries strikes me as a sometimes sad but authentic exposure of an alarming descent into a spiral of never-ending searching to quell one's sexual appetite.
Like Gawthrop, I've lived and worked in Thailand and was reminded of the temptations and dangers of sexual escape in a foreign country where the potential to besot is available 24/7. Add to this the temporary relief of limitless icy cold beers to deal with the heat and humidity, increasing the fantasy that one may be in a tropical paradise.
In the last short sections, Corruption of the Heart and Coming Home, the author faces approaching middle-age and the startling recognition of his capacity for a kind of racism. Gawthrop defines it well: the treatment of an entire group of people as one's own personal playpen. Fortunately, after three years of bedding down with countless men, many of them impoverished and problematic, to satisfy a voracious sexual appetite, and then "in one way or another" heartlessly casting them aside, the author allows himself to fall in love with Lalune. A migrant worker from Burma, Lalune has a cherubic face, twinkling brown eyes and a personality that is simple, uncomplicated and earnest.
Although he had half-heartedly attempted a number of short-lived, serous relationships with Thai lovers--some of whom because of economic depravation, exercised disappointing, exploitive, fiscal and monetary maneuvers, it is a welcome moment when at age thirty-eight, the jaded man no longer expecting to find love, finally lets love in. It is even more satisfying when he commits to an enduring partnership. He starts the difficult immigration process of sponsoring and bringing Lalune to Canada. The reader is left to wonder if the admirable wish is ever realized, but that will require another diary to look forward to. In Rice Queen Diaries, this scant moment comes almost too late in the book, but getting there, although frustrating at times, is well worth it.
My Bangkok, Oh Boy! reveals a similar involvement between Mat, a horny farang and a handsome Thai man, comparable discomforting financial transactions between them, and the perils and rewards of bi-cultural, long-distance relationships. Although Mat is not referred to as a "Rice Queen," after reading Gawthrop, one can say he certainly qualifies. Bangkok, Oh Boy! depicts a few sexual escapades that parallel Gawthrop's East/West saga, but by comparison with his vast chronicle of sex, my unapologetically horny central character seems chaste and unblemished in that department. But, Mat shares some of the unconscious sexual racism Gawthrop briefly explores, and comes to face it full force in concluding chapters. In any case, Gawthrop rings very familiar bells.
Rice Queen Diaries is a highly recommended read. Together with Rafaelito Sy's Potato Queen, Gambone's Beijing, Sulayman K's Bilal's Bread and Kadushin's Wonderlands, it is a welcome addition to a growing and increasingly necessary genre of West meets East.
Mark V. Rose, Author BANGKOK, OH BOY! atripress@aol.com

Gawthrop, Daniel. "The Rice Queen Diaries: A Memoir". Arsenal Pulp Press, 2005.

The Nature of Sexual Desire

Amos Lassen and Literary Pride

For those of you who are not familiar with the term "rice queen", it is the very politically incorrect term used to describe men who are into Asian men. With that clarified, let us have a look at Daniel Gawthrop's new memoir. "The Rice Queen Diaries". Gawthrop writes about the politics and pleasures of being self identified as a "rice queen." As he roams the major cities of the world in his quest to find Asian men to satisfy his lust as well as exploring the hidden recesses of his mind, he gives us great insight into the multicultural world of sexuality. In doing so we learn of the manners and the contradictions of his desires and where those desires take him--Vancouver, Bangkok, London, Viet Nam. Here is an intimate look at the culture and "otherness" as well as gay desire. His diaries span three continents and explore his personal thoughts and ultimately arrive at what propels the nuances of love and sexuality that all of us possess. It is more than just a memoir; it is a polemic on sexual desire. The insight is amazing and the information provided is fascinating, informative and based upon the ultimate test--truth.
It all began when Gawthrop had a childhood crush on Bruce Lee. While at private school, he chose his friends from the Chinese immigrant students in his school and in the twelfth grade he was brutally hazed and raped by a group of them. The impression that this left upon him is probably what was the main reason that he continued in the pursuit f Asian men. As he dwells on the history of the Chinese that came to Canada, he allows us to peek into his world of sexuality as he worked his way seducing many of them.
He relates a trip to Bangkok, we learn of his adventures there and how he was constantly on the hunt for the right Asian male. This part of the book saddened me a great deal because it appears he was never satisfied and constantly on the prowl for new "rice". His sexual appetite seems insatiable and he is constantly looking for the next man. His life has consisted of only a few short lived romances, several of those men with whom he was involved became involved with him because of their own poor financial status
The book is provocative to say the least but even more than that it is titillating and full of conflict. It turns to promiscuity often and in many ways the author seems to be self-destructive. However, the book succeeds. There is a good deal of scholarly research here and there is a great deal to be learned about the nature of sexuality and desire. It deals with a subject that is obviously very close to the author and therefore it is very personal. Gawthrop manages to balance the scholarly with the prurient and that is no easy feat. More than anything else, if you want to learn about the nature of male sexual desire, "The Rice Queen Diaries" is a great place to begin.

Biggie, Biggie Biggie can't you see, sometimes your words just hypnotize me. I just finished reading a Very Lonely Planet and was impressed by Canadian Ryan Bigge's authors wit and insight. Ryan Biggie has obviously gone below the radar and delved into the underworld of modern man.

The most rewarding part of the book is the description of the Astute Brute. The Astute Brute hates AC/DC etc. He actually reads the articles in Playboy. The Astute Brute is sissier product child of the 50's Barbeque man. A delicate balance somewhere between Noam Chomsky and John Wayne. Isn't it that the Astute Brute just doesn't have proper guidance from "top" authority figures. That is, actors such as John Wayne or prominent generals such as Dwight Eisehhower. China and other Asian countries have done this to great avail. We need proper prototypes...prototypes that allow us to get to work and function with a degree of harmony. Some reason that used to be the "King". I mean what man doesn't really want to yell and scream in his tiny environs...no matter how far down that is suppressed.

On a personal level, I can't help but but feel that this whole project is an attempt, on some sub-conscious level to push women further away from him. Isn't the worst thing that a man can do is actually heed the call of women to be nice and proper? This author, like myself, seems to be beyond the point of no return. Women notoriously used to say, we want a nice guy, but I if you acted that way how many would call you up on it? The author seems to be screaming out his frustrations on this point. Personally, I learned that lesson the hard way. I was told that these men need it too bad and better watch your excessive use adjectives son. Isn't what women really want is someone who displays some sort of tribal sign that denotes them as part of the line?

One point I would have like to seen elaborated on is the concept of "Real Men". What is a real man in modern Canadian society and how does he fair on the playing field? Better yet...why is it that men do not become real men. What are the forces that deter them from this? What causes intelligent men to go underground? Is it hyperreal images that make them inferior? It is this reviewers belief that it is pluralistic nature of modern Canada that frowns upon any form tribal male behaviour. Which is to bad because we all need to get the led out. So many men are lost in the shuffle and their violence and abuse against women reflect that.

Some gems of his wit include..."how the nerds fame went 404" or his description of "Single-itis"...(single men retreat into specialites because it feels good to be amaster of something!) and finally the younger brother of love...luv. In addition his descriptions of certain types of men are very revealing. I noticed his book is set for publication in Australia. To be honest, it probably won't fly as Australia seems to be the last bastion of malehood. Oh to be a miner in Queensland.

I have seen so many friends continually searching for manhood. Maybe this author will help define the prototype that is so desperately required.

Ryan Bigge has penned the ultimate guide to the slacker guy who will not -- cannot -- muster the courage to ask a girl out, get laid or make a relationship fly. Written more as a faux socialogical essay, Bigge astutely skewers the post-modern male through this book's 180-odd pages. It's a very fast read, and a very funny one. Some might say Bigge's tone is somewhat whiny, but it's a satricial kind of whiny -- a perfect tone for this book. (I've met Bigge, and he's actually more the shy, inverted type than book nerd.)

My only carp is that the book might have had a wee bit more resonance if the author had offered a little *more* personal insight, or had sprinkled his mishaps in the dating world a little more liberally throughout. Instead, there's a few pages dedicated to his dud dates near the start of the book, and a few anecdotes in chunks here and there. Which is fine, but the book might have had a bit more emotional heft if the observations turned inwards insead of outward -- or was presented in a more linear way. In fact, the most successful parts of the book are Bigge's recounting of a blind date from hell in New York and his guest stint on a dating/cooking show, but they seem out of place or out of order somehow.

Still, a very lonely planet is a *very* funny book. And a worthwhile read regardless if you're a female trying to figure guys out, or a guy trying to figure yourself out.

A very stupid book. The author should stop being such a wimp and start being a real man. Then he'd get a girlfriend. Girls don't like weaklings like this guy. Give me a break, chasing skirts is easy. Straighten out, Mr. Bigge, and stop whining like some pipe smoker.

Despite a few typos in my copy (like 'ideaologies', 'recomment'), I do very strongly recommend this book for twenty-somethings like me who feel lost in the 3rd Millennium world of dating. Bigge (courageously) lets it all hang out, and conceptualizes the "Astute Brute", a man who is astute enough to read Playboy for the articles and brute enough to something 'truly excellent' in front of a beautiful woman. He goes through a brief (and excellent) history of advice guides for men, and comes up with his own advice, which he, as a true self-conscious twenty-something would, advocates you ignore. Humourous (because it's true) are his dating escapades, like his week-long blind date in New York, and his experience on a 'cooking-for-love' TV show. Recommented (uh, I mean, recommended).

Women in Shadows is screwy to me at some point but i really like Ann Bannons' work . Its continuation of Laura marrying Jack Mann and having a baby. I love how the main character grew on her own way then while everything is all well and good then you realize she's still a human being and tend to make a whole lot of mistake.

Ann Bannon's novel "Women in the Shadows" is one of the worst works of "lesbian fiction" I've ever seen.

The book center on two characters: First there's Laura. She's a young feminine woman who has come to believe, through a series of affairs with women, that she is a lesbian. The book chronicles her on-again, off-again affair with the book's other character, Beebo. While the novel, published about four decades ago, starts off decent, it slowly spirals into a self-hating depiction of lesbianism as an afflication that can be shrugged off with help from a man. In the end of the book, Laura, married (and pregnant) to a "gay" man, finally feels the contentment that only normal, happy straight people know. But don't take my word for it. Here's the last sentence of the book: "And they (Laura and Jack) fell asleep together with the sigh of relief and hope that only the lost, who have found themselves, can feel."

Inspirational.

Then there's Beebo, a slack-wearing, whiskey-drinking butch. The back cover of the book says she is the "impulsive, passionate, and sometimes impossible Midwestern girl who swiftly captures reader's hearts." Somebody should've captured this fictionl character and carted her to the nearest mental institute. To prove her undying devotion to Laura, Beebo slaughters a dog. And she beats Laura's head against the floor, chokes her and threatens to murder her. But the worst part? After hearing Beebo killed the dog, Laura (who had left her and married Jack) realizes that she loves Beebo more than ever. She returns to the nut, then realizes she doesn't love her (again) and goes to the contentment that resides only in the arms of a man. I couldn't sleep after I read this crap.

As a lesbian, I am offended this is considered a gay novel. I paid $3 for it in a book warehouse bargain bin and feel I spent too much.

Don't waste your money.

This novel has important historical significance. Originally published in 1959, this novel broke from the formula of 1950's lesbian pulp fiction. It dealt with real issues in lesbian relationships like domestic violence, racism, and internalized homophobia. Other lesbian pulp fiction novels of the time were simply voyeuristic looks at lesbians and fostered the image that lesbians were predatory monsters. The women in this novel were tied to 1950's conventions, but they were still ahead of their time. The plot leaves much to be desired; it is very depressing. However, this book should not be brushed aside because it is outdated. In its proper historical context, this novel is a masterpiece.

.... I was initially offended by the violent overtones of the relationship between Laura and Beebo. However, reading the author's afterword opens some light into the nature of the darkness in this novel. Her preceding two novels in the series, Odd Girl Out, and Beebo Brinker, take an idealized and fantasized view of lesbian relationships. This novel attempts a more realistic approach to the real problems that plague relationships, including lesbian ones. The setting in which the book was written greatly affected the author, as homosexuality was indeed considered an unnatural, unhealthy affliction for the time period of the 1950s. While the characters display a desire to be 'normal' the author is unwavering in that they are, at the heart, gay, and no amount of wishing or trying can change that. While the female protaganist does indeed marry the gay male protaganist, she does NOT become romantically involved with him and maintains her defiant lesbianism throughout. This book explores themes no lesbian comtemporary author was doing at the time: interracial relationships, artificial insemination, domestic abuse, even femme-femme (as opposed to the proverbial butch-femme) attraction. ....

I don't know that lesbians growing up in the 1990's will understand this book, but those of us who grew up in the 1950's and 1960's most certainly will.

I have read all of Ann Bannon's books.

I found "Journey to a Woman" to be excellent.

It tells the story of tormented Beth, who turned away from her female lover, Laura, when the two of them were in college together. Beth chose instead to marry.

Now Beth, unsuited to the life of wife and mother of two young children, feels the misery of her choice.

She begins to dream of Laura. She begins to long again to have a woman in her life to love.

In her quest for lesbian love she becomes involved with Vega, a beautiful, sophisticated, many times married woman. It turns out the unstable Vega has a secret that makes a relationship with her a vast disappointment for Beth.

Beth yearns anew for Laura, and sets out on a quest to find her. She finds many surprises along the way, and eventually happiness.

Although the characters certainly are not into "Gay Pride", the book is very realistic in it's portrayal of what life was like for lesbians before Stonewall.

It's really a great ending to a fiction. Beth search for Laura having her meet Beebo and falling in love with her in the process. I just wish there still a continuation to this book about Beebo and Beth's relationship.

I found myself questioning whether such a character could actually exist in the real world. The main character had such extreme shifts in mood, thought processes, concerns, and morality that she seemed better suited for an institution. And in the end, you are expected to believe that she will live happily ever after.

Schulman, Sarah. "Rat Bohemia", Arsenal Pulp Press, 2008. (reprint)

Dealing with Loss

Sara Schulman first published "Rat Bohemia" in 1995 which was right in the middle of the AIDS crisis and people took notice. Rat Bohemia is part of New York City where the members of the GLBT community come together to deal with the losses they feel. Here is a story that hurts in its boldness and honesty. Roaming the city is Rita Mae, a rat exterminator by profession and she is an optimist like all bohemians claim to be. Bohemians are those who stand outside of the acknowledged social structure in which we live. Rita and friends look for new ways and avenues to truth and honesty--not just about their own lives but also about the lives of those that live around them because others cannot seem to be bothered.
The book engenders grief because it means we have to return to that awful period when so many died needlessly. We also lost the sense of Bohemia.
In the new introduction to "Rat Bohemia" Schulman tells us that at least 75,000 New Yorkers died to AIDS and that is about twenty percent of the total losses in America. New York has changed because of AIDS and gay neighborhoods became gentrified as residents died. Gay people, at that time, in many cases, left their unsupportive families and when they were gone, their families rarely intervened and therefore many were buried under terrible conditions. Those who had AIDS were risk-takers who lived among people who did not want them in society and they paid very heavily for being "out".
Are we allowed to forget? I certainly hope that no one ever forgets because this was out holocaust and Sarah Schulman reminds us of it.
She brilliantly looks at how our disenfranchisement is found as a political evil in every aspect of life and it hurts to read it but IT MUST BE READ. It is a part of out lives as incendiary as this book is, it is above all honest.
I am not sure that "Rat Bohemia" is even a novel, it is more of a remembrance and a hurtful nostalgic look at a world, people and a counterculture that is lost forever. It is also somewhat of a manifesto for those that demand that their families accept them. "Rat Bohemia" is "a dispatch from real life" and is perhaps one of the important books that deals with the way we lived and live now.

Rat Bohemia articulates one of the simple truths behind the complexity of lesbian and gay experience - the overpowering need for parental acceptance and the lifelong pain and coping necessitated by its absence.

Interesting blurb and sale price helped me decide to buy this book. It was boring and did not live up to the hype. Not wirth more than $2, so if you see it in the dollar bin, then that's the only time to buy it.