I bought this book earlier today, and I have just finished reading it. Of course it is not hard to read a 134 page book in a few hours, but what a moving experience it was! This was the second Burroughs book that I have read, the first being Junky, and like Junky this book is straight forward and brutally honest. Lee reminds me of a high school kid pining away over the girl of his dreams. But of course Burroughs is not a kid, and he is not pining overe a girl. It is almost painful reading this book, seeing how obsessed Lee is with the man he desires. He goes out of his way several times just to be with Allerton, and one unkind word from Allerton can destroy's Lee's ego. It is really a quite sad, and quite real sight to behold.

This is a really good book that shows how much lust and desire can almost ruin a person. Also, as many have stated before, Burroughs does a wonderful job of describing 40s era Mexico city and several places in south america. Also the introduction is very awesome giving a short but poignant look at how Burroughs started writing. A good book check it out.

William's QUEER was a stunningly perfect piece of evidence supporting the statement that "Nothing a person can write has the capacity to be untrue." As I read the book during a five-day visit to Gettysburgh University, PA, I couldn't help but laugh at the subtle similarities between Lee's sorrow, his overbearing affection for Allerton, his vulnerability, and all those elements also exhibited in modern day 'traditional' lives. QUEER is an unignorable read for the Burroughs buff and everyone else.

A brilliant, bare book of an intense, one-way homosexual relationship, and the tale of unrequited love on any level. Burrough's describes the feeling of giving yourself and getting nothing in return beautifully. A must for the loved and lost masses. A good place to begin your Burroughs reading list as it's one of his most coherent books.

Sorry - I wanted to like this book, but I just couldn't. I tried, but I kept having visions of all those horrible Harlequin Books my mother used to read when I was a kid. That maybe is not fair - this book strives for more ... but it is just a little too much. Proceed with caution.

"Is true love just a name given to sexual pleasure? Such was the question faced by Tom Clifden, a clever street hustler who found himself sexually glued to Hank Carter, a struggling would-be actor in New York City. Their physical and sexual appetites for each other knew no boundaries. Night after night they revelled in passionate and uninhibited sexual episodes. But the question comes up much later. Tom is 53-years-old and (without Hank) has used his good looks and street smarts to good advantage. He owns a string of bars across the country and is comfortably settled in Key West. His quietude ends abruptly when a letter arrives from Eunice, a woman who 25 years earlier was Hank's first love - and the woman whom Hank had abandoned for Tom's unbelievable sexual powers and pleasures. This is the story of two handsome young men who try to build a relationship during the sexually explosive and carefree years of the late 60s. The tale of their love unfolds, revealing the challenges of the ever-growing temptations of Infidelity." - abstract from Intermale

I wrote a review for GAY BOOKS, a Yahoo club, in a forum message I posted to William Rooney. Here is the text of that post: "Hi, I read your book Thursday. I didn't expect to be off work, but since I was I took advantage and read it. I truly enjoyed the book. I like the way you write...crisp. I usually plow slowly through books, but now and then I find a writer whose words flow so readily that I can just go with it like a jet. You're such a writer. Easy to read? Maybe that is what I'm saying. I do know that is a part of it. The story was fun. I have a few theatre friends, a retired gay off-Broadway production manager, and was in a few musicals (chorus boy) myself...way back when...so I liked the setting a lot. I thought Tom was a rather brutally honest guy...honest in how he just went at life with seeming purpose. Hank was my favorite, and no doubt is one of your favorites...I could tell. I don't know if you based the book on real life, but if you did...I believe Hank would have been a precious memory. Stylistically I LOVED THE BOOK! The first person narration, and the reportorial or documentary method...journal-like...made me feel like I was being let in on a personal secret...like the author, YOU, took me into your confidence on these sensitive matters. That said, I also found it very interesting how honestly you revealed yourself psychologically and sexually. Very commendable honest approach.

All in all I loved the book. I look forward to your next one.

By the way, the Title: INFIDELITY seemed perfect to me after I read the book. It startled me at first, but after meeting these guys, I understood.

THANKS... monkglen aka jungbud"

I've read and reread William Taylor's book a number of times. Every time I am impressed with the way he manages to invoke the realities of life in small town New Zealand and especially the pressures faced by adolescent males in a society which holds rugby stars and good keen men tantamount to deities. This fact of New Zealand life needs to be kept in mind when reading The Blue Lawn - much of the inherent value is lost without reference to Kiwi culture. Taylor's characters are credible and authentic. I tend to agree with comments that the allusion to the Holocaust (in Theo's grandmother) is perhaps unnecessary, but I can understand Taylor's motives in using the motif in the book. I disagree with those who feel The Blue Lawn lacks more about rugby - this is not a sports book, it is about two boys who happen to play rugby (as most boys in New Zealand do at some stage) and their nascent relationship, emotional and sexual. All in all this book is a great read and I'd recommend it to anyone.

This is one of the most difficult reviews I have written. First of all, I am a 37 year old, gay man from the U.S., so I know I am not the average reader the author expected to reach. However, I am a consultant to a library about gay/lesbian youth books, so I read dozens of "coming of age" books every month. "The Blue Lawn" threw me for a loop. The New Zealand language is stunning and beautiful to an outsider. The way the author also blended the effects of World War II into the book and the present is fantastic. Most of the characters seem so real.

However, the book lacks a few key elements. Without reveling any of the plot for those of you who decide to read the book, allow me to try to explain. The boys are so quick to anger, yet never seem to reach any degree of real longing for each other. Their anger, due to their love/lust for each other, comes so quickly; but when presented with opportunites for physical contact and expressions of their apparent love, they fall short and I find it hard to imagine that two 16 year olds would not have progressed beyond a simple kiss and sleeping in the same bed (clothed). While I understand that the author may have wanted to avoid any explicit sexual situations (as I believe this book was written for the younger reader), he could have at least had the boys been a bit more physical - something more realistic in this day and age.

If I may be so bold as to offer advice to to the author... take this book, expand it a bit more, explore each character a bit more and make the relationship between the two sixteen year olds just a bit more realistic. You kept them just a bit too pure and a young gay boy reading this book may want to know that doing more than just sleeping in the same bed is okay.

On the other hand, I must commend the author for his fantastic use of words, his blending of the past and present, and for allowing non-New Zealand readers to understand the role rugby plays in a young man's life. I would not hesitate to read more by this author and I have to say that this book is worth the price. It could be better, but, it is worth the price. My final thought.. I hope William Taylor writes another, longer, more drawn out book. I'll be the first to buy it.

This was a very cute, albeit short one day read. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is great to read about a popular football player falling for the new guy at school. This book has great romantic tension. I loved the Blue Lawn by William Taylor. The main character finds that he has feelings for his new best friend. The characters are struggling with their sexuality. What I loved about it was how the author described the teenage feelings of having a crush and falling in love.
Those feelings are universal no matter who the crush is on.

David is fifteen and a small-town rugby player of blossoming ability. He is the popular only son of loving parents.

Theo is sixteen and an outsider. He is new to the town and grandson of a wealthy eccentric, Gretal Meyer - an old woman with a story of her own.

This is a powerful novel of relationships, the story of a strong physical attraction between two young men. How do you deal with such feelings when you don't know what you really want? Where, or to whom, do you turn for help?

The Blue Lawn is, arguably, William Taylor's finest writing in a notable career as an author for young people.

I am often leery of memoirs published by University presses as they tend to be filled with stoic facts, are often boring, display little emotion, and reveal very little of the real person being showcased. This book is certainly an exception in every way, as it reads like a novel, and is filled with fascinating, intimate details of Ricardo's life. Ricardo J. Brown's memoir offers us an exciting look into gay life of the late 1940's. Brown was discharged from the navy for being a homosexual, and returned to his working-class life in St. Paul, Minnesota. Most of this memoir centers around a bar called Kirmser's that catered to working class men during the day, and at night became a hang-out or underground club for gay men. It's Brown's own personal observations, feelings, and experiences he shares with us of the friends he made during these nightly visits to Kirmser's that are so enlightening, fascinating and fun to read. Some of the stories are sad and tragic, too. It's the honestly in the telling of these stories that will captivate you. A few personal photos have been included in this memoir.

If you want a glimpse into what gay life was life in the time before Stonewall, then this book is an excellent choice. It's a small book that's filled with the life of a time most of us know little about, but would like to know more about. Gay life in the 1940's was quite different than today and certainly very closeted. What will always remain the same whether it is 1945 or today is the love, emotions, and personal intimacy that people share and have in common. A remarkable memoir!!

Joe Hanssen

I couldn't help but feel empathy for the author in facing the difficulty of his life, but at the same time the stories seem somewhat disjointed. There is no compelling narrative- only snapshots that illuminate various characters and traditions- like taking a figurine from the shelf, inspecting it, and putting it back. Each segment underlines the reality of gay existence before stonewall, but I also felt a certain lack of emotion in the writing- more of a filtered look at the past, than an open examination of what constructed the being. But perhaps the detachment I felt in the author's telling was what makes the book poignent- even after so many years, he still couldn't face the emotions he kept so dutifully bottled thanks to society's conventions. I can only imagine the pain, the loneliness, the heartbreak that was excised and lies obscured under the text.

One of the best books, I've ever read. This book deals with working class gays,who are not int the closet, nor are they self hating stereotypes. This book should be given to every young gay male, starting out in the world.

If you are looking for a real novel with interesting characters, I'd look elsewhere. I found "Where the Boys Are" incredibly predictable and cliche-ridden. The answer to the central mystery is too clearly telegraphed early on in the book, and it just gets worse towards the end. The protagonist must have done a LOT of X and K to not have come to the obvious and clumsy answer before the very end of the novel.

If you are looking for a mindless read that you can zip through in one day on the beach, this book is OK. If you want a real novel, try something by Alan Hollinghurst or Mark Merlis. They can write creative fiction that gives you something to chew on... somehting a bit more substantial than the dialog of "Queer as Folk".

Boy,this one was tough. I LOVED The Men from the Boys; it is one of my favorite newer gay novels, so I was very excited about this. But, I have very mixed feelings here.

Pros: Mann makes some wonderful observations about the gay lifestyle in relation to AIDS in this era, the self destructiveness of certain behavior, etc. But that's about it.

Cons: 1) Wow. There is a "mystery" that runs almost to the very last page of the novel. A mystery that any reader will solve a few pages into the setup. I mean it is ridiculous to believe that ANY gay man wouldn't have thought out the angle to that story - never mind a character who is an educated, writer. It becomes REALLY torturous as we keep waiting for him to figure it out.
2) The other main character has become almost too new-agey spritual. To the point where some dialogue is really annoying and makes you almost cringe. 3) Eva. Hello? Really - yeah, we'd all put up with that. 4) I guess these two great characters now just seem ... dumb.

Flip side: if you haven't read the first book, it does have it's fun moments and some good social observations. But as a sequel it is a letdown. It's like Mann wanted to write a sequel but didn't have a real story so he concocted this strange platform for the boys return.

Wow, I just finished Where the Boys Are and I have to say that it is a touching novel in so many ways. More than the plotline of the book, this is a story about relationships, love, friendships, and families. There are so many things within the story that I can relate to my own life. It's full of insightfulness to life and love, and makes the reader understand that relationships are complex, not cut neatly from the same cloth.

I took great comfort in the fact that I could see myself in many of the characters (except the psychotic Eva and all-too innocent Anthony). I think most readers will be able to relate to these characters. It's refreshing to read a novel where life is does not always go the way we want it to, that there are not always happy endings, building and staying in relationships can be a struggle, and that life is unpredictable...that we have to take what we get. As Lloyd says in the book..."If it's meant to be, it will happen."

I found the book both intriguing and comforting. It's one of those rare novels that I hated to see end because I loved being a part of these character's lives. It's also a book that I find I keep going back to and re-reading certain things because they touched my heart and soul. In so many ways, this book makes me realize that we all have struggles in life to combat, and that we have to face them and be strong...and maybe we'll come away a little wiser in the process.

Thanks for the great read. I'm sure I'll keep this book to re-read again in the future. I highly recommend it to anyone who's experienced any of the gay circuit culture. Finally, a realistic representation of a gay culture (and the fact that this is only a small part of these character's lives) that so many are quick criticize without understanding the positive side of finally belonging to a group/tribe.

The book contains many incisive quotations from gay Harlemites who consider themselves black first and gay second, and whose social and sexual networks are black. The research was done in the late 1980s for a Columbia anthropology Ph.D. The author, a white New Zealander, died in 1992, and it has taken a long time for the book to reach print. Hawkeswood was so intent on challenging the focus on black male irresponsibility (and pathology), that he claims no one else studied middle-class blacks (ignoring SLIM'S TABLE, BLACK BOURGEOIS, etc.). On the way to providing an antithesis of the studies of junkies and slackers, he comes across as a Candide (or Pangloss), downplaying homophobia and "fagbashing" in Harlem and making his informants come across as almost saintly in their devotion to their churches, natal families, and social networks. Hawkeswood gathered some interesting material, and the social science literature IS slanted toward black ne're-do-wells

The most important lesson from this book is that there is no such thing as "privacy" for gay sex.A few chapters are mystifying (Hollister's and Lane') but there are fascinating chapters on cruising in Hanoi (Aaronson), straight-identified men's wider conception of "private" than gay men's (Leap), historical explorations of 19th-century Netherlands (van der Meer)and 1950s Montrel (Higgins), and -- far and away the most graphic -- Stephen Murray's demonstration that gay men differ in their responses to and valuations of being observed having sex.

As a fifty-something gay man, I have taken many "recreational" trips to Latin America. This book captures the spirit of forbidden love in a hostile world. I can't think of a better gift for the Latino in your life!

I read this over several days while commuting to work, so that may have done it a disservice since there are MANY one dimensional characters here. After a the first couple of days, it was hard to keep them straight. That being said, however, my commute reading was not inspiring me to keep reading it AFTER I got home either. This story just kind of sits there. The characters are either stereotypes or paper-thin; you really don't care about most of them. Also, the aggressiveness of taking over this town almost had me routing for the residents.
Not much to keep you interested here. And, one more thing, will book publishers please stop putting a naked torso on EVERY gay novel. It's kind of lame and embarressing at the same time!

I'm an avid reader of "gay" fiction and nonfiction. Twice I've resided in Provincetown and am acquainted with Fire Island and Palm Springs, etc. Imagine my delight in reading William Storandt's engrossing new book -- twice till 4:00 a.m. (He'd won me over as a fan with his beautifully-written first book "Outbound.)

As the book jacket warned, one can hardly put it down. Charismatic and appealingly-developed characters abound; and the unfolding story is heart-warming, dishy, timely and brilliant. Not since "The Front Runner" have I enjoyed creating in my mind a future film of a meaty gay novel of this caliber. Perhaps this book, like "Auntie Mame" and "The Berlin Stories" will have a number of iterations. Let's hope so! Anyway, I think it's here to stay in our burgeoning rack of quality literature, and "The Summer They Came" is way near the top of the heap -- right along with White, Holleran, Vidal, Picano ate all - - -

After reading the other reviews of this fabulous book, I just had to add my two cents. WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COPPERTONE! This book is as delicious as its cover. Enjoy every minute of Storandt's glistening narrative. Afterwards you'll feel fully satisfied and eager for more.

This is a light and breezy small village comedy of manners, a la P.G. Wodehouse, albeit with a gay theme. When a rich London theatrical producer buys the "Hall House" in a small village an hour outside London, and installs his young boyfriend there, wacky antics ensue. The books is chock-a-block with misunderstandings, mistaken identities, secret longings, and over-the-top characters. Per the genre, the book ends with all the characters gathered for a party which quickly degenerates into a wild fiasco in which all is revealed and resolved. It's all fairly diverting stuff, although I never found it laugh-out-loud funny, nor particularly insightful on gay issues.

I bought this book after reading "Now and Then". At first I was a little disappointed, "this is not the Corlett I know" I thought. Then I started laughing. This comedy which goes from humor to farce, is irresistible. It reminds me of the Italian "commedia dell'arte" or the British "comedy of manners". Funny characterization, farcical situation make of this novel one of the funniest thing I ever read.

I bought this book after reading "Now and Then" by the same author. At first I was a little disappointed, "this is not the Corlett I know", I thought. Then I started laughing.
This comedy which goes from humor to farce, is irresistible. It reminds me of the Italian "commedia dell'arte" or the British "comedy of manners". Funny characterization, farcical situations make of this novel one of the funniest books I ever read.