Off The Top Of My Head

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Wed, 16 Aug 2017 09:53:00 +0000

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Club Arcana

by Jon Wilson

Giveaway ends August 31, 2017.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Book Review: The Whale, A Love Story

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Sun, 28 Aug 2016 02:56:00 +0000

The Whale: A Love Story by Mark Beauregard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I remember a teacher asking me how I felt about Moby Dick and my answering her: "Well, mostly I feel like throwing it across the room, screaming 'When is something gonna happen?'"

Or maybe I didn't. Maybe I merely invented the exchange since it so neatly encapsulates my feelings for Melville's classic (which I haven't tried to reread in the more than quarter century since reading it in school). Also, I was not a particularly precocious child.

It's also how I felt reading Beauregard's slashfiction about the almost hook up of Herman Melville with fellow author Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The idea of some sort of homosexual admiration (that sounds like a strange way to phrase it, but...) between the two is nothing startlingly new. I believe I first came across the supposition in Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A.. They lived near one another for a time and Melville did dedicate Moby Dick to Hawthorne, though after reading Beauregard's work one might assume HM was merely calling NH a big dick (and not in a good way).

Let me say up front--or maybe here in the middle--that I hated this book. I struggled to finish it and at one point (I believe it was the start of Chapter 16, which is entirely epistolary), I cussed out loud and nearly threw the book across the room.

It starts off neatly enough. Beauregard nicely sets the piece in its period. He draws the main characters well, and pencils in several background characters that are amusing. In fact, he describes everything in detail. I think several pages could be filled with nothing but the various flowers he feels compelled to name. Melville is handsome and a bit wild, Hawthorne is older, handsome but slightly reserved. Their eyes meet, they talk like two pompous hipsters in a coffee shop, they ride in a carriage with their shoes touching... But then we're subjected to at least a hundred and twenty-five pages of (in the author's own words) "tragic yearning" (pg. 119), as Melville (usually Herman in the text) struggles to write the manuscript that will (eventually) become synonymous with his name, while simultaneously longing for his beloved Nathaniel (usually Hawthorne for some reason) like an insipid sink mooning for her sparkly vampire.
The spirit of the novel is, in fact, neatly encapsulated in this sentence from the beginning of chapter 12:

"…Herman settled into a stable pattern of work, which nevertheless failed to bring him peace of mind, as he spent nearly every waking moment pining for Hawthorne." (pg. 130)

So, if I disliked the book so much, why did I rate it 4 starts? Because it's very well written, and seems well-researched (I'm no expert on either man). And I firmly believe my own pissy preferences shouldn't take precedence over the talent, skill and scholarship of such a work. Would I have preferred that if Beauregard was going to accept the premise the two men felt more than a platonic affection they had acted on it (at least once)? Sure. And I also wish he hadn't felt the need to recast a writer of some gravitas as Bella Swan. But it's his slash not mine.

I can't recommend it, but I can see that it is a work of merit.

View all my reviews

Pink Lemonade Blog Tour Prize Winner Announced!

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Sat, 13 Aug 2016 02:54:00 +0000

The Pink Lemonade Blog Tour is Officially Over!

05/17/2016: The Purple Rose Teahouse
05/18/2016: The Novel Approach
05/19/2016: Rick R. Reed Reality
05/20/2016: Meg Perry Books
05/21/2016: Jon Michaelson's Murder Blog
05/22/2016: Charlie Cochrane's Blog

The breakdown for the autographed copies of the two Declan Colette books was as follows:
The entries (all commentators were entered, except for hosts on their own sites)

I then generated a random number based on the number of entries:

The winner is Aussie54/Gaycrow/Anonymous (who statistically had the best chance!)

Clinton and Kaine's Lost Weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Sun, 24 Jul 2016 04:49:00 +0000

Clinton and Kaine celebrate the post-RNC pre-DNC weekend in style.

Gay Noir

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Wed, 11 May 2016 05:06:00 +0000

Here's a fun new tumblr site.

Gay Noir.

Check it out!

The site is moderated by the author of

which also looks cool.

Here is the blurb:

The year is 1949. The East End of London is still recovering from the blitz. Fitzgerald O’Sullivan is a young man with romantic notions of living like an impoverished writer. In an attempt to escape his past, he abandons his life of privilege and rents a room in the East End. There he meets Roy Parker, a chirpy Cockney with a working-class charm. Roy asks Fitz to write a story about how he saved the lives of two Jewish ladies during the war. What follows is a far-fetched tale filled with lies and exaggerations. Roy is obviously a fantasist, but he is also an irrepressible charmer and Fitz becomes infatuated with him. But Fitz doesn’t know that there is a kernel of truth in the tale he is telling. When the body of a Jewish woman is fished up off the coast of Kent, the real story slowly begins to unfold. Fitz soon finds himself embroiled in a world of theft, deceit and murder. The Deluded is a noir thriller in which nothing and no one is what it at first seems to be. It is a dark tale of love, bitterness and vengeance set in the chaotic aftermath of the Second World War.

Cheap as Beasts Named Lammy Finalist

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 07:45:00 +0000

The finalists for the 28th Annual Lambda Literary Awards were announced yesterday. Cheap as Beasts, the first Declan Colette mystery, was included! I had to take a 24-hour breath before posting this.

I'm very excited and proud and hope that a few more people might read it as a result (we live in hope). A caveat, all the reporting I've seen lists the author as Jonathon Wilson. That's not my name! Oh, well, honestly, they can say Johnny Appleseed wrote it as long as they get the title right!

Dan Phillips Christmas Songs: Keep Feeling Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Sat, 19 Dec 2015 12:53:00 +0000

I'm a huge fan of Dan Phillips, even though I know next to nothing about him, except that he used to post lots of great Christmas songs "re-imagined".

Here is Keep Feeling Christmas!

You can find more of his Christmas music HERE.

Another Krampus Night!

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Sun, 06 Dec 2015 06:46:00 +0000

I didn't scour the internet for more pics of Krampus. (If you're interested and missed them a few years ago, HERE is my collection I wrangled previously.)

And HERE is a link to my Christmas Story "Krampus' Christmas Wish" which is a sequel to "A Hundred Little Lies."

And, finally, here is the trailer to the movie which opened yesterday.

And, in case you need to know more about Krampus, here is a video "about" Krampus.

Happy December (+ a second-hand Dorothy Parker story)

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 14:14:00 +0000

So, the plan was to post wintry pictures this month with brief, erudite (haha!) explanations of why they appealed to me. And I still might. In the meantime, however, I've just finished reading "An Unfinished Woman", Lillian Hellman's first memoir, and came across a laugh-out-loud funny line.

Apparently Dorothy Parker once told Ms. Hellman that all she wanted on her tombstone was:

"If you can read this you've come too close."

Works for me!

RELEASE DAY: Every Unworthy Thing (Declan Colette #2)

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Mon, 16 Nov 2015 13:01:00 +0000

The new book is officially released via all sources today!

Gay PI Declan Colette finds himself in the middle of a gang war between resurgent Japanese mobsters and the black gangsters who expanded operations during World War II. Complicating matters is crime boss Max Harrold. Whether he’s stoking the fires of racial hostility or not, Harrold is definitely making things difficult for Colette, shanghaiing the detective and planting the body of a murdered Japanese gangster in Colette’s office.

Now Colette’s only hope is to find the kidnapped daughter of a powerful Japanese businessman and return her home safely. And he has to do it with criminals standing in his way and police hot on his tail.

Here's BOLD STROKES BOOKS website.

Here's my author page on Amazon (with scary pictures of the author)!

Every Unworthy Thing (Declan Colette #2) ~ Goodreads Giveaway!

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 13:02:00 +0000

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Every Unworthy Thing

by Jon Wilson

Giveaway ends November 30, 2015.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Review: Dear Hank Williams by Kimberly Willis Holt

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 08:09:00 +0000

Dear Hank Williams by Kimberly Willis Holt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

MOSTLY SPOILER FREE ZONE!

With the admitted caveat that I am not even close to the target audience of this book, I will say I enjoyed it. My worry is, would it appeal to the target audience?

To begin with, it's entirely epistolary. And we get just one side of the conversation. So even while it is fan letters written to Hank Williams, it eventually starts reading like a diary. Fortunately Tate is engaging. Unfortunately most of that engagement is due to the fact that you know she's playing fast and loose with the facts. Truths are doled out slowly. More than once Tate fesses up that she wasn't exactly honest before. I would imagine a lot of this might prove difficult for MG readers. Or, maybe I'm underestimating them.

I felt the M. Night Shyamalan twist was a little over the top, even though I saw it coming a mile off. (Again, I'm not the target audience. Trying to imagine myself as a twelve year old boy reading this, I confess I may have been blown away by the last reveal. For me it was just, yeah, I know. ((I knew about the time the other saleswoman's daughter visited! Yeah, I'm bragging...!)))

A very good MG book. Probably 4.25 or 4.34 if GR allowed fractions.

View all my reviews

Love Wins

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Sat, 27 Jun 2015 03:59:00 +0000

Maurice said it, in the film named for him, based on a novel by E.M. Forster: "I think I shall not marry."

Given my current situation and what I can predict about the future (necessarily, a sketchy accomplishment), I can confidently say the same. But, y'know, I'm glad I've lived to see the day I could marry...Marry someone I truly loved and was in love with.

For all of those out there eager to celebrate this new right, I applaud you, and wish you well.

As Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote today, speaking for the majority (himself, Stephen G. Breyer, and the three women on the SC: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan):

"No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right."

-The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed. It is so ordered."

Review: The Vines

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 22:56:00 +0000

The Vines by Christopher Rice

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm surprised by how much I liked this novel. I had some difficulties with my last stab at Rice's work--something about an ex-military guy and sex on the beach which I DNF.

This was quirky horror that managed to keep me on my toes, even while it never really scared. I admired the pacing and the characters, though I felt often "backstory" was substituted for "characterization"--a trait that seems to be becoming more and more common (e.g., rather than flesh out the character in real time, I will keep interrupting the narrative with snippets from this painful episode he experienced a few years ago). I'm one of those readers that groan aloud every time a flashback begins.

Still, highly recommended as fun, fast and facile. Like a cheeseburger at that drive-thru that has easy freeway access.

View all my reviews

Cover Reveal ~ Every Unworthy Thing

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Sun, 01 Mar 2015 02:45:00 +0000

Here is the cover for the next book in the Declan Colette series, Every Unworthy Thing, coming November 2015 from Bold Strokes Books...

Chris L. McKenna is Haunting My Dreams

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 11:08:00 +0000

Okay, maybe that's a bit too regency romance. But, dude, is this dude not perfection?

Apparently, State of Affairs, hoping to lose a legion of gay fans (and probably as many straight women) killed off his character Nick Vera on the Monday (2/9/15) penultimate episode. Altho the entrance to the tunnels was directly behind him (and open) when the missiles struck. And afterward we were not shown a body!

SquareHippies ran a spread of screen caps from the episode HERE. This one is my fav tho:

Enter to Win a Signed Copy of the New Book Over at Goodreads!

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 10:24:00 +0000

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Cheap as Beasts

by Jon Wilson

Giveaway ends February 28, 2015.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Yes, Virginia

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Thu, 25 Dec 2014 09:48:00 +0000

You'll probably come across this many places, but for some reason it resonated with me this year, so I chose to post it...

from the September 21, 1897, edition of The (New York) Sun

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

Dear Editor—

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon

   Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
   Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
    Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
    You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
    No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

You can learn more about the editorial, and the man who wrote it, HERE.

Winter Solstice In Song ~ The Freeze by Lene Lovich

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Sun, 21 Dec 2014 10:36:00 +0000

Book Review ~ The Golden Age by Gore Vidal

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 00:59:00 +0000

The Golden Age by Gore Vidal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book grew on me as I progressed. I attribute the difficult time I had getting into it at the beginning to the fact that it was one of (actually the last of) a series. Several characters are dropped on the reader with very little introduction, yet a bit of research revealed these had been major players in a previous volume. As this novel's events unwound, these players faded somewhat as heir, Peter Sanford, took not so much center stage as central POV duties.

One thing that (especially at first) I found disconcerting was Vidal's insertion of himself as a character in the narrative. It initially comprised little more than a drive-by, which had little more effect on me than to cause a roll of the eyes). But by the end, the author/character had gone full meta and surrounded himself with his characters much like Samantha did that time she tried to write a story on Bewitched. It only managed to work (IMO) due to the inclusion of Aaron Burr, harkening back to the first entry in this series, which (full disclosure) I have not read.

I'm a huge van of Vidal but not so keen on his style as a fiction writer. His slightly detached, slightly pedagogic voice works better when he's functioning as a critic/essayist. Still, I enjoyed the book. It makes a great companion to his final collection of essays, The Last Empire.

View all my reviews

Happy Thanksgiving!

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 09:53:00 +0000

"Come home to Thanksgiving! Dear Children, come home!
From the Northland and the South, from West and the East,
Where'er ye are resting, where'er ye roam,
Come back to this sacred and annual feast."

	Horace Greeley (1846)
	New York Herald Tribune

Barefoot in the Prints of our Ancestors

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 10:00:00 +0000

I meant to post all this week with historical and fun facts about Thanksgiving, but tonight as so many fires burn and so many more immutable crimes prove ultimately incombustible , I'm just going to reflect on the words of wiser men…

The quotes are assembled/ordered by me rather than as a reflection of any text or even any chronology. Which, I suppose, is a round-about way of saying: "Emphasis Mine."

James Baldwin, from The Fire Next Time:

“There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves.”

“The American Negro has the great advantage of having never believed the collection of myths to which white Americans cling: that their ancestors were all freedom-loving heroes, that they were born in the greatest country the world has ever seen, or that Americans are invincible in battle and wise in peace, that Americans have always dealt honorably with Mexicans and Indians and all other neighbors or inferiors, that American men are the world's most direct and virile, that American women are pure. Negroes know far more about white Americans than that; it can almost be said, in fact, that they know about white Americans what parents—or, anyway, mothers—know about their children, and that they very often regard white Americans that way. And perhaps this attitude, held in spite of what they know and have endured, helps to explain why Negroes, on the whole, and until lately, have allowed themselves to feel so little hatred. The tendency has really been, insofar as this was possible, to dismiss white people as the slightly mad victims of their own brainwashing.”

“If we—and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others—do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world”

Thurgood Marshall:

“I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust…We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.”

W. E. B. Du Bois:

"One ever feels his twoness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder."

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word."

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

And, since I began with him, I'll let Baldwin have the final word (from The Fire Next Time):

"Whose little boy are you?”

A HUNDRED LITTLE LIES - Audiobook Just Released

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 23:05:00 +0000

The Audiobook of A Hundred Little Lies just became available from Audible. Read by JP Handler.

You can find it HERE.

Review: China Dolls

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Wed, 05 Nov 2014 08:51:00 +0000

China Dolls by Lisa See

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another book I hope to some day soon offer a full review for. I will say briefly, the revolving POV did not work for me, mainly because I didn't understand the point of it. I never felt it offered any deeper insight into the relationships of the three main characters and, except for very minor cosmetics, there wasn't a lot of difference in their voices. (Was this to point out a universal similarity? As I say, I never figured out why the author chose to write the story that way.)

The other main thing that annoyed me was that again and again plot points were sprung on the reader like grand "AHA!" moments, but never were actually AHA moments. Anyone paying attention knew well before it was revealed that Ruby and Joe were sleeping together, and that Helen betrayed Ruby. And, god knows, the bit about the weird dude attacking the other dancer with a knife wasn't so much foreshadowed as telegraphed.

Still a fast and comfortable read. Seemingly well-researched and written with an obvious love of the subject and period.

View all my reviews

Review: The Boys on the Rock

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Wilson) — Wed, 22 Oct 2014 10:20:00 +0000

The Boys on the Rock by John Fox

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Probably my favorite "Coming Out" story.

View all my reviews