This is a cute book. The narrator has a strong and engaging voice and is charming if not always likable.
The story in a nutshell: It is the 1700s. Henry "Monty" Montague—known rake and heir to an earldom—and his best friend Percy Newton are off on their Grand Tour. Monty's younger sister Felicity is along for the ride as they're meant to drop her at finishing school in Marseilles. Of course, everything goes awry when Monty steals a little something from the Duke of Bourbon during a visit to Versailles.
The novel attacks a number of issues, including race relations (Percy is part black), and health (Percy also has epilepsy), and abuse (Monty's father beats him), as well as homosexuality (Monty has a huge crush on Percy). It also glances over gender issues as Felicity protests having to go to finishing school because she'd rather become a surgeon.
Overall, it was a swift read up until the last 20-25% of the book. At that point, I felt the book had begun to suffer from a surfeit of plot. Things just kept happening, and I was beginning to be exhausted, not in a good way. But I plowed through (sometimes tempted to skim) to see how it would end.
Still, the book is largely a fine marriage of character and plot. If you like Lestat, you'll probably like Monty's narration. Many nice descriptions, though they sometimes get rather thick.
The main characters being teenagers, it's listed as YA, but if you're thinking of this for your teen, be sure they're ready for some of the heftier issues.
Showing posts with label homosexuality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homosexuality. Show all posts
8.25.2016
Books In Season
Do you feel that books have seasons? For me, fall is when the mysteries and spy novels ripen and are ready to be read. If you agree, consider picking up The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller to add to your stack. It's perfect to read with a cup of hot tea. Read more about books at various seasons and enter to win a $100 gift card here.
6.08.2016
Movies: More Gay, Please
So I was reading this Variety article about how Finding Dory isn't as gay as people might've hoped. And they talk about none of the big superheroes are gay, and James Bond isn't gay, and isn't it time for a little more gay in our movies?
Which is why I once again want to make a case for bringing The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller to the screen. He's more intellectual than Bond, but he is the next best thing to a gay Bond.
(I know a lot of people don't want gay characters in their movies. They also don't want chocolate in their peanut butter and vice versa. But not all movies are made for just those people, any more than all candies are.)
The article cites the need to be able to market to China, which has no homosexual rights. Well, okay. But if we start letting close-minded countries dictate our entertainment policies, we'll be just as censored as they are.
So I guess the rule is: No expensive movies unless we can sell them to China. Which is why we don't have gay superheroes or gay James Bond. Cuz those movies cost too much to make for them not to play in the lucrative Chinese market.
Sigh.
For the record, I don't think Peter would cost all that much . . .
Which is why I once again want to make a case for bringing The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller to the screen. He's more intellectual than Bond, but he is the next best thing to a gay Bond.
(I know a lot of people don't want gay characters in their movies. They also don't want chocolate in their peanut butter and vice versa. But not all movies are made for just those people, any more than all candies are.)
The article cites the need to be able to market to China, which has no homosexual rights. Well, okay. But if we start letting close-minded countries dictate our entertainment policies, we'll be just as censored as they are.
So I guess the rule is: No expensive movies unless we can sell them to China. Which is why we don't have gay superheroes or gay James Bond. Cuz those movies cost too much to make for them not to play in the lucrative Chinese market.
Sigh.
For the record, I don't think Peter would cost all that much . . .
4.06.2016
Movies: Carol
The only books by Patricia Highsmith that I've read are the Tom Ripley ones. I really like those. And maybe I'd like The Price of Salt, on which Carol is based, but . . . I don't know.
For those of you even farther behind than I am on these things, Carol is set in the 1950s and follows the titular character (played by Cate Blanchett) in a budding romance with a much younger woman (Rooney Mara). Complications arise as Carol is in the midst of a divorce and may lose custody and visitation with her young daughter.
My chief problem was a lack of tension. They didn't make me care enough about Carol to care whether she got to see her daughter. And I didn't really feel much by way of sexual tension between Carol and the shopgirl either.
Maybe it plays better in prose? Research informed me that Highsmith was in therapy to "normalize" her sexuality at the time she wrote The Price of Salt. That tidbit makes the book and movie marginally more interesting. In the film, Carol does mention seeing a therapist. I'd almost think that would have been a better story than whatever it was they were trying to tell me in this movie.
In short, I was underwhelmed. The film is slow, almost soporific. Really good musical score, but when you're noticing the music, that tells you something may be wrong with the bigger picture.
For those of you even farther behind than I am on these things, Carol is set in the 1950s and follows the titular character (played by Cate Blanchett) in a budding romance with a much younger woman (Rooney Mara). Complications arise as Carol is in the midst of a divorce and may lose custody and visitation with her young daughter.
My chief problem was a lack of tension. They didn't make me care enough about Carol to care whether she got to see her daughter. And I didn't really feel much by way of sexual tension between Carol and the shopgirl either.
Maybe it plays better in prose? Research informed me that Highsmith was in therapy to "normalize" her sexuality at the time she wrote The Price of Salt. That tidbit makes the book and movie marginally more interesting. In the film, Carol does mention seeing a therapist. I'd almost think that would have been a better story than whatever it was they were trying to tell me in this movie.
In short, I was underwhelmed. The film is slow, almost soporific. Really good musical score, but when you're noticing the music, that tells you something may be wrong with the bigger picture.
6.19.2015
Movies: An Honest Liar
I don't know how I grew up without knowing of "The Amazing Randi," though I can hazard a guess. Still, I'm glad this film acquainted me with him.
James Randi is a magician who made a name for himself as a Houdini-like escape artist. But his secondary occupation is as a debunker of so-called psychics and faith healers, or basically anyone who uses trickery to deceive the public. One of Randi's biggest feuds has been with Uri Geller. He also went after Peter Popoff, revealing how he and his wife used radio to make it seem like Popoff was receiving information from God during revivals.
Here's the part where I figure I never heard about Randi: I grew up in a religious household. Tent revivals and large Christian conferences were pretty common in my youth, and then . . . They sort of trickled away. Now, looking at Wikipedia, I see the cessation happened around the same time Randi unveiled the truth about Popoff. My guess is Randi was not a welcome name in my family's circles.
So this is an interesting little documentary about Randi's work as a magician and debunker, though we learn very little about him as a person. Maybe that's the great obfuscation here. We do hear of his partner (now husband) and the long-running lie that entails, so there is an interesting juxtaposition of this man whose crusade for truth and honesty is partially rooted in deception. But it's a lie of another kind; Randi does not lie about his work. Nor does he reveal the tricks of his trade. While the movie demonstrates several tricks in order to prove so-called psychics are only doing simple stage magic, it takes care not to tell how the tricks are done.
And the film is remarkably even-handed. Though Randi is the central focus, An Honest Liar does not actively appear to choose sides. Uri Geller is featured, defending his position. Audiences shout down Randi, telling him his disbelief is what keeps him from tapping into his natural psychic abilities. I think the lesson here is that people don't much appreciate having their beliefs ripped away from them.
I do wish there were a bit more cohesiveness, more narrative to the movie. It touches on the Geller thing, the Popoff thing, some Stanford "experiments," but lacks true structure. Rather like a sandcastle, crumbling at the edges.
On the whole, it's an interesting film that runs slightly too long and would have benefitted from more solid content. But I'm glad to have learned (very late in the game) about Randi and his work. Will probably look up a few of his books to see if they have more to offer.
James Randi is a magician who made a name for himself as a Houdini-like escape artist. But his secondary occupation is as a debunker of so-called psychics and faith healers, or basically anyone who uses trickery to deceive the public. One of Randi's biggest feuds has been with Uri Geller. He also went after Peter Popoff, revealing how he and his wife used radio to make it seem like Popoff was receiving information from God during revivals.
Here's the part where I figure I never heard about Randi: I grew up in a religious household. Tent revivals and large Christian conferences were pretty common in my youth, and then . . . They sort of trickled away. Now, looking at Wikipedia, I see the cessation happened around the same time Randi unveiled the truth about Popoff. My guess is Randi was not a welcome name in my family's circles.
So this is an interesting little documentary about Randi's work as a magician and debunker, though we learn very little about him as a person. Maybe that's the great obfuscation here. We do hear of his partner (now husband) and the long-running lie that entails, so there is an interesting juxtaposition of this man whose crusade for truth and honesty is partially rooted in deception. But it's a lie of another kind; Randi does not lie about his work. Nor does he reveal the tricks of his trade. While the movie demonstrates several tricks in order to prove so-called psychics are only doing simple stage magic, it takes care not to tell how the tricks are done.
And the film is remarkably even-handed. Though Randi is the central focus, An Honest Liar does not actively appear to choose sides. Uri Geller is featured, defending his position. Audiences shout down Randi, telling him his disbelief is what keeps him from tapping into his natural psychic abilities. I think the lesson here is that people don't much appreciate having their beliefs ripped away from them.
I do wish there were a bit more cohesiveness, more narrative to the movie. It touches on the Geller thing, the Popoff thing, some Stanford "experiments," but lacks true structure. Rather like a sandcastle, crumbling at the edges.
On the whole, it's an interesting film that runs slightly too long and would have benefitted from more solid content. But I'm glad to have learned (very late in the game) about Randi and his work. Will probably look up a few of his books to see if they have more to offer.
8.06.2014
Peter and Charles's Travel Scrapbook
So in April 2013 I participated in the A to Z blogging challenge over on PepperWords, and my theme was to explore the places my character Peter Stoller and his lover Charles traveled to during their exile from the UK. It was a lot of fun.
But of course, now those vignettes are lost in the bowels of the blog, and what's more, one would have to read down to up to get them "in order." (The entries are necessarily alphabetical rather than chronological, so maybe order doesn't really matter, but still.) So I decided to collect them in a handy PDF. Which you can access here.
My favorites are H, O, and W.
Enjoy!
But of course, now those vignettes are lost in the bowels of the blog, and what's more, one would have to read down to up to get them "in order." (The entries are necessarily alphabetical rather than chronological, so maybe order doesn't really matter, but still.) So I decided to collect them in a handy PDF. Which you can access here.
My favorites are H, O, and W.
Enjoy!
7.19.2013
My Gay Protagonist
"Why can't he be gay?" Andrew Garfield notably asked when discussing Spider-Man (or Peter Parker). And it's a valid question (except to the entertainment industry people who believe that making a main character a homosexual will cut their box office potential by a wide margin by alienating a large portion of the potential audience).
Peter Stoller, the protagonist in my St. Peter series, is gay. And yet the stories themselves are not about him being gay; the plots don't revolve around his sexual preference. His being gay is a simple matter of fact, a part of his life. His relationship with Charles is as real a relationship as a fictional spy can possibly have, I guess, by which I mean you could make Charles into Charlotte and still have the same story, the same tensions, etc. But I wouldn't change a thing about Peter because I love him as he is. (Says the loving mother/creator of the character.)
When I turned St. Peter in Chains into a screenplay, the readers were excited. They were so happy to see a gay protagonist in a movie where his being gay was incidental instead of key. I have so many gay friends, and their lives are not all about their being gay any more than mine is about being straight. This is what I wanted to show in Peter's story. That relationships are relationships are relationships regardless of gender. And that being gay is not the only part of a homosexual's life.
Of course, no one would touch the script in order to produce it. Because, hey, gay protagonist.
I'm currently writing the sequel (it's nearly done!), which is titled St. Peter at the Gate. And maybe I'll take that story and marry it to St. Peter in Chains and do up a full-length screenplay . . . That no one will buy because Peter is gay. Or they'll suggest I turn Charles into a girl (or maybe Peter into a girl). And I'll say no. Because while I'm pretty flexible, pretty easy to work with on most accounts, I'm very protective of Peter. He deserves to be who he is without people demanding he change or hide it. Yes, even though he's a fiction. He's my fiction, and I'll fight for him.
Peter Stoller, the protagonist in my St. Peter series, is gay. And yet the stories themselves are not about him being gay; the plots don't revolve around his sexual preference. His being gay is a simple matter of fact, a part of his life. His relationship with Charles is as real a relationship as a fictional spy can possibly have, I guess, by which I mean you could make Charles into Charlotte and still have the same story, the same tensions, etc. But I wouldn't change a thing about Peter because I love him as he is. (Says the loving mother/creator of the character.)
When I turned St. Peter in Chains into a screenplay, the readers were excited. They were so happy to see a gay protagonist in a movie where his being gay was incidental instead of key. I have so many gay friends, and their lives are not all about their being gay any more than mine is about being straight. This is what I wanted to show in Peter's story. That relationships are relationships are relationships regardless of gender. And that being gay is not the only part of a homosexual's life.
Of course, no one would touch the script in order to produce it. Because, hey, gay protagonist.
I'm currently writing the sequel (it's nearly done!), which is titled St. Peter at the Gate. And maybe I'll take that story and marry it to St. Peter in Chains and do up a full-length screenplay . . . That no one will buy because Peter is gay. Or they'll suggest I turn Charles into a girl (or maybe Peter into a girl). And I'll say no. Because while I'm pretty flexible, pretty easy to work with on most accounts, I'm very protective of Peter. He deserves to be who he is without people demanding he change or hide it. Yes, even though he's a fiction. He's my fiction, and I'll fight for him.
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