REVIEWS Book Marks Richard Labonte | December 06, 2004 Fresh Men: New Voices in Gay Fiction, selected by Edmund White and edited by Donald Weise. Carroll & Graf, 349 pages, $14 paper. If you're apt to judge a book by title and cover, this might seem like a collection of mundane gay erotica. Get past the marketing ploy of the come-hither title and nude torsos on the cover, though, and discover Fresh Men, the finest collection of literary queer short stories in, literally, decades – since the early Men on Men anthologies. The 20 stories, selected by White from dozens of submissions, really do reflect "new voices": none of the contributors has yet published a novel, and most are in their 20s. Several focus on early sexual experiences – but with a twist, as in Will Fabro's fierce "First Sex," about a boy's violent exploitation by an older brother, or Patrick Ryan's brilliant "Ground Control," about a bullied student who consoles himself with an invented gay friend. There are erotic moments: Jason Shults' "Some Reflections on the Bob Uncertainty," about an educated man's romance with a younger "hillbilly," is an intelligently sexy entry. But the seductive charm of this showcase of queer talent is how widely the writing ranges beyond the sexual. love conjure/blues, by Sharon Bridgforth. RedBone Press, 92 pages, $14 paper. More than a novel, not entirely a stage performance, soulful prose infused with impassioned poetry, best read aloud or at least whispered in the mind – love conjure/blues is a challenge to read, but with infinite rewards. Among them is the essential message that, central to survival in a black working-class world, there must be the acceptance of love in all its varieties: "they made poetry one syllable at a time/they conjured themselves/love." In telling her story – of pretty girls and butch bulldykes, sissy boys and strong gay men, sassy cross-dressers and assorted other benders of gender – Bridgforth braids the spirited gusto of gospel, the soaring notes of the spiritual, and the bawdiness of the blues. The result is a jazzy fusion of literary text, musical emotion, and oral storytelling, simmering with the crushing history of a racist culture and the defiant, quietly proud lives of Southern blacks and queers. It's not as immediately accessible as her previous work, the bull jean stories – but it is equally lyrical, often as funny, and much more intense an experience. Moira Orfei in Aigues-Mortes, by Wayne Koestenbaum. Soft Skull Press, 214 pages, $13.95 paper. Koestenbaum is obsessed with opera: see The Queen's Throat, his academic study . He dotes on icons and divas: Maria Callas, Jackie Onassis, Andy Warhol. Both passions explode with an unsettling ribald magnificence in this feisty mess of a novel, his first fiction. Theo Mangrove is a vainglorious pianist, who even as he is slowly dying attains 20 erections a day, finding release with waterfront hustlers, male piano students, whoever crosses his path – including his long-suffering wife, and, almost, his sister. Aside from sex, his all-consuming pursuit, as he attempts to revive a career that never went far, is to stage a swan-song recital with glamorous Italian circus star Moira Orfei (there is, in fact, a Moira Orfei Circus, founded in 1961, still touring in Europe). The plot doesn't matter much: presented as the disjointed notebook ramblings of the priapic pianist, the story consists of Theo's scattered musings on his life as a failed musical prodigy, his overbearing dysfunctional family, and his unceasing sexual desire. The book's real power comes from Koestenbaum's linguistic prowess – sentences that are a real pleasure to read pepper page after fabulist page, and so skimming is encouraged. Alexander the Fabulous: The Man Who Brought the World to Its Knees, by Michael Alvear and Vicky A. Shecter. Advocate Books, 169 pages, $14.95 paper. Would that all history texts were as sassy as this sexy look at the life of Alexander the Great, the boy-king who conquered the known world and loved a boyhood chum all his life. Of course, it's unlikely that any book with chapters like "The King and His Inner Drama Queen" or "Sex in the City-States" would ever be included on a school curriculum – not even as "suggestive" reading. Oops – make that "suggested." As an antidote to the antigay fundamentalist frothing fomented by Oliver Stone's gay-lite Alexander, however, this relatively fabulous historical biography is a blessed necessity. Co-author Shecter's solid research provides the no-nonsense facts that nicely buttress Alvear's snappy, often laugh-out-loud writing. There are times, though, when he strains too hard for comic effect, veering from cleverly astute ("Alexander the Great was one of the vainest men in human history. And that's the opinion of historians who liked him"), to stereotypically queeny ("Sure, he had a great ass, but that's not why Alexander is called 'the Great'"). Featured Excerpt: yes sir/i saw it. i saw the dam break I saw the love flow I saw the stars sparkle I saw the light shift that night I saw/wasn't nothing the same all because the dust got stirred/by change bettye drops ten years of bitter off/make she youth shine lushy we now call by she birth name again/luiscious/she smile and sweet and calm like she ain't even herself/but more so is bettye and luiscious done popped the boards off they old home/been busy making it new – from love conjure/blues, by Sharon Bridgforth Footnotes: ELEVEN GAY WRITERS – and one new publisher – are featured in Out's 2004 roster of the Out 100 gay achievers. In "Business," Suspect Thoughts Press's Greg Wharton (editor, with business and life partner Ian Philips, of I Do/I Don't) is cited as a "prolific enfant terrible." In "Books," humorists David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs, acclaimed for mining their loopy lives for hilarious memoirs, are joined by Iraqi War blogger Salam Pax, whose Internet postings are collected in The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi; E. Lynn Harris, the black gay author of juicy novels that heave both male and female bosoms; comic artist Eric Orner, whose Ethan Green strip has been made into a movie; the enigmatic novelist JT LeRoy, whose work includes Sarah and Harold's End; poet Randall Mann, whose collection Complaint in the Garden won him the prestigious Kenyon Review Prize; and, the only lesbian, Irshad Manji, the Canadian author of The Trouble With Islam: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith, whose book drew death threats. Also honored are poet and performer Tim'm West, in "Music," for his work with hip-hop trio Deep Dickollective; Doug Wright, in "Performance," for I Am My Own Woman; and Tony Kushner, in "Television," for the HBO film of Angels in America... IT DOESN'T HAVE an English-language publisher yet. But Bruce Benderson's erotic memoir, The Romanian, has won the Prix de Flore for a French-language translation, Autobiographie erotique, published by editions Rivages. The 6,000-euros prize – $7,100 when Benderson picked it up in Paris on Nov. 18 – is accompanied by a daily glass of Pouilly fume wine for a year, though it's not clear if the New York writer needs to dine at the famed Cafe Flore, sponsor of the award, to sip his reward. An excerpt from The Romanian appears in Best Gay Erotica 2005. Richard Labonte has been reading, editing, selling, and writing about queer literature since the mid-'70s. Previous edition Book Marks [22/11/2004]