REVIEWS Book Marks Richard Labonte | June 20, 2005 The Boys in the Brownstone, by Kevin Scott. Southern Tier Editions, 261 pages, $22.95 paper. A bawdy Cheers–like bar for non-Chelsea queers – that's the Brownstone, a quirky gentleman's bar on the affluent Upper East Side of New York, where the dysfunctional characters of this serio-comic debut novel mingle and mix. A closeted pastor is writing checks on his dying monsignor's account to finance his boyfriend's landscaping business. A bored museum curator, with a history of suicidal boyfriends, courts a depressed pianist. A heartthrob soap star is aghast that his progressive (if sanctimonious) father is making a spectacle of his son's gay wedding. A married Brazilian investment banker is hunting for a man who blends Bloomingdale's style with Carnivale abandon. Scott deftly braids together their stories – of love gone sadly wrong, of lives gone humorously astray, and of some happy endings – all the while juggling the romantic woes of his "boys" with witty panache. The Boys in the Brownstone is both a quaint comedy of manners (think Edith Wharton) and a brisk, contemporary commentary on gay life (think Andrew Holleran): quite a combo. All the Bold Days of My Restless Life, by Sharon Stone. Alyson Books, 256 pages, $13.95 paper. Page 1: "Peter took an audible gasp and his eyes sprang from his sockets." Page 43: "Derek sucked in an audible gasp that put white caps on the East River." Page 79: "After she picked her eyeballs up off the floor and put them back in her sockets..." Sheesh. Didn't anybody edit this sorry novel? (Which is not, by the way, by the actress of the same name.) The persistently maladroit writing (page 72: "Peter rolled his eyes, stomped over to Alex..."; also page 72: "Peter rolled his eyes as he sat next to Bailey") sucks the scant wit right out of Stone's leaden parody of TV soaps. But, for fans of improbable plots and hyperbolic characters, here's what All the Bold Days is all about: Head writer Bailey Connors, dumped by her girlfriend just before Christmas, really wants a lover. Veteran screen and stage actress Morgan Gable, single after several unhappy marriages, joins the soap's cast to boost the ratings. After many daffy miscues, love ensues. Fade to...it's hard to care. This is a novel for people who think a full page about a man pissing on his glasses (page 152) is the height of comic craft. Absolutely, Positively Not, by David Larochelle. Scholastic Books, 224 pages, $16.95 paper. Sixteen-year-old Steven has one secret he won't ever tell anyone – he goes square-dancing every week with his mother. He has another secret he hasn't even told himself – he's gay. But how could he be gay? His girlie pinups are on his bedroom wall, in plain sight. Of course, there is that male underwear catalog under his bed. But he's absolutely, positively not gay – even though the new substitute teacher, who doubles as assistant hockey coach, is awfully hunky. It's a confusing time for a yearning young teen – his hormones are dragging him somewhere his emotions don't want to go. Uncertainty comes to a head when struggling Steven, with neither girl nor boy for a prom date, takes a golden retriever to the dance – a heady act of defiance that endows him with a certain celebrity at school, and enough self-assurance to eventually come out. Larochelle's comforting young-adult novel (ages 12 and up) breaks no new ground in its genre. But it does consider a young queer's qualms with gentle good humor. The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World, by Alan Downs. Da Capo Press, 256 pages, $23 hardcover. For clinical psychologist Downs, there are three stages in a gay man's journey of self-discovery: Overwhelmed by Shame, Compensating for Shame, and Discovering Authenticity. The Velvet Rage – peppered with deeply personal reflections from men he has counseled over 15 years in practice – is a jargon-free exposition of those stages: of adolescents and young men who absorb shame before they come out; of out gay men who rage against that shame by overcompensating (with fashion flamboyance, muscled bodies, and sexual behavior); and finally, of mature queers (emotionally as well as chronologically) who have confronted "the roots of rage" and found "the road to contentment." Downs' one-trauma-fits-all approach to acquiring gay self-esteem seems overly broad: By his definition, every gay man needs therapy – and the sooner the better. But there's no doubt that the men profiled in this sober call for "owning the injury" of growing up gay in a straight world were helped by their counseling, or that there are certainly some readers who will find their own lives reflected in that healing. Featured Excerpt: Cute? Was Mr. Bowman cute? Sure, he had thick black hair that was slightly mussed, as if he had just stepped out of a convertible. And true, he dressed in sharp-looking clothes that showed off his bodybuilder's physique. And yes, when he smiled, his sky blue eyes smiled as well, making it difficult to concentrate on anything else. But did I think he was cute? "I didn't notice," I said loudly, then quickly headed off to geometry. –from Absolutely, Positively Not, by David Larochelle Footnotes: FORMER MARINE RICH MERRITT, now an Atlanta lawyer, was fired by his law firm, Powell Goldstein, just weeks before the June 7 release of his memoir, Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star (touted by Entertainment Weekly as "Eyebrow-Raiser of the Week"). While still on active duty, Merritt was featured anonymously in a 1998 New York Times Magazine cover story about gays in the military. Not long after, The Advocate revealed his identity – an unmasking that eventually also uncovered Merritt's short stint as a performer in a number of military-themed erotic videos. "Today's political climate, and the continuing loss of separation between church and state and public and private life in our country, seem to me to demand that we tell our stories, especially when personal freedoms are involved," says Merritt, who is committed to making his dismissal a political postscript to the story recounted in his memoir... TOMES & TEASURES, the 18-year-old Tampa gay bookstore, gift shop, and coffeehouse, closed June 1 after a six-year decline in business. The store "transcended its retail function and became a social hub for the gay and lesbian community...but the mainstreaming of gay culture, a mission owner Bill Kanouff sought to achieve with Tomes and Treasures, ironically has brought about the business' demise," according to an April 29 St. Petersburg Times story. Richard Labonte has been reading, editing, selling, and writing about queer literature since the mid-'70s. Previous edition Book Marks