Rating: 
Summary: Ugh!!!
Review: Another Paul Russell novel, another story of older lecherous gay men draining the lifeblood out of teenagers. Does this author have the ability to write characters with any dignity? Do all of his gay characters need to live in a rarified world where the hunt of sex justifies any action no matter how deplorable?Beyond the distastefulness of the subject matter, an even larger issue is the author's inability to give his characters (gay or straight!) any depth. They are merely cardboard cutouts acting without any genuine motivation. Max, Perry, Kyle, Donna, Leanne, Elliot are all one-note characters that act simply as plot devices to move along a laggard storyline, rather than showing any kind of complex thought or emotion. There are some wonderful gay novels out there that don't whitewash the gay experience, yet don't debase it either. And there are some wonderful gay authors who take the time and have the ability to put the human experience in deeper, fuller context.
Rating: 
Summary: Henry James Revisited
Review: Anyone familiar with the plot of "The Wings of the Dove" will know where this book is going. A doomed character is taken advantage of by someone he is smitten with at the instigation of a third party. The two plotters succeed beyond their wildest dreams but the victory is a hollow one. Mr Russell handles his material excellently and transposes the theme into the gay world very successfully. My only disappointment was that the situation of Jesse, the brother with a conscience, is still not resolved by the end of the book - but that's life!
Rating:
Summary: Culture clash and unlikely lovers
Review: Cameron Barnes is a PWA. In fact, he nearly succumbed to the illness but rebounded so miraculously, he feels like a new man. With renewed verve and interest in life, he refocuses on his pride and joy: the wonderful garden in his backyard that had also begun to show signs of decay. For this, he hires two local youths, brothers who are close enough in image and attitude they could be twins. But all is not as it seems amongst the natives. Demonstrating once again his prowess for taking a small community, injecting it with an external gay influence and making the results sing like a high-tension wire in a windstorm, Paul Russell does an excellent job in his newest novel, "War Against the Animals." Rich with metaphor and symbolism, "...Animals" is a subtle, poignant, and wonderful novel. No one can cultivate nuance from his characters like Russell, and he is in fine form here. Though the plot was a bit predictable, the journey was well worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Skip it!
Review: For starters, let me say that reading online reviews like the previous one makes me angry. It is so obviously a 'plant', from either the publisher or a friend of the author that it's ridiculous. Nobody writes a review with that much insight and worded so well unless it was a professional. Secondly, this book is awful. It's not badly written (compared to a lot of the drek out there!) but the story is forced and the characters are shallow. Each character is defined by just one atribute -- not a single one is a fully-developed, well-rounded person. And the less said about the contrived, manipulative plot the better. Check out mcuh better written 'coming out' novels such as The Year of Ice or The World of Normal Boys. You'll be better rewarded for your time.
Rating: 
Summary: No Garden of Eden
Review: I absolutely loved this book, but may not be able to articulate why. Long after I finished the book, it still resonates with me and I find myself amazed at how he pulled off writing one of the most provoking and powerful books. At first, however, I was afraid Paul Russell had slipped. The characters seem two dimensional, the set up more a plotline from a soap opera, and yet beneath all that is one of the most moving and haunting books I have ever read. I think he has captured the ever present ache of being human, on all levels: the constant ache of loss and hope and anger and fear and confusion and need and love in all its guises. And to get to such a deep inquiry about life, he must go through the familiar; the simple supposed givens about characters give way to such complexities. There is nothing simple about surviving.
I have never read a novel that caused me to face so many truths about myself and the world around me. Paul Russell never avoids the truth about his characters thoughts or actions, even if it makes one wince. I loved this book. Beneath the surface of the simple set-up lies one of the most profound examinations of what it really means to face life over and over again. There is nothing simple about us--we war with and against so much.
Paul Russell is one of the greatest writers. All his work needs to be read. I loved all his previous novels and now I add this one as well to those few books that have provoked so much in me.
Rating:
Summary: Surprising depth and compassion after a shaky beginning.
Review: I very nearly put this book down after the first couple of chapters when it seemed to be veering toward tired cliche and stereotypes. Fortunately, I laid that judgement aside for a moment and was soon lost in the gothic drama and melancholy of this small New York mountain town. Talented writing brings freshness and originality to a tale is essentially the old fable of brother against brother. Cameron is a man who has been granted a reprieve (albeit temporary) from the ravishes of AIDS related illness and is facing life alone after a long-term, nearly sexless relationship. He is man capable of being surprised by joy despite his gentle scorn for the New Age spirituality of many of his friends. His compassion for wild things is evident in his tolerance when he discovers a half-starved deer munching plants in his beloved "Chaos Garden" and his humane removal of a dead 'possum from the middle of the road.
When Jesse, the younger, thoughtful brother of a wild, charismatic, and alcoholic redneck, enters his employ, Cameron's gentle, unself-conscious manner awakens something in the young man that he had tried to bury n the past. In turn, Jesse's uncouth beauty and occasionally startling candor, awakens something Cameron thought had died when the love of his life succumbed to AIDS. Like stars viewed in a city skyline, Jesse's light was obscured by the dazzle of his brother Kyle's larger than life personality. He is not even aware, most of the time, of what his brother takes from him. His own brilliance shines when he away from the toxic influence of Kyle. In the end, this is Jesse's story and he will haunt you when the book is over. I found myself re-reading certain passages this morning after staying up until 3 a.m. to finish the book.
Rating:
Summary: Paul Russell Is A Terrific Writer!
Review: It is too bad that in this country we insist on putting witers into categories: Jewish, black, women, black women, Southern, gay, Lesbian et al. There is certainly no gay writer in America tody who writes better novels than Mr. Russell, and he certainly holds his own with any other contemporary novelist (of any category) I can think of. The novel is about Cameron, a middle-aged gay man who had moved to a little rural town in upstate New York with a lover who he no longer has. Once very ill with AIDS, he has been given his life back because of a new drug regimen. His already complicated life suddenly becomes more so when he hires two local "redneck" brothers Kyle and Jesse, both recently out of high school, to do some work for him. This novel is about so much--what happens when affluent gays (or any other group for that matter) move into a poor, depressed area and "take over"? How does a long-time survivor of AIDS have a relationship in these difficult times? And most poignantly, what is a young man to do about this feelings for other men, given the repressed, straight family that surrounds him? Russell is such a good writer; he is both so good with the English language and insightful about people and relationships. A woman is described as "face-lift beautiful." And a "persimmon smudge of a moon" climbs into the sky. Here is Russell's description of the enthusiasm and glow of youth that most of us lose as adults: " Regaining his [Cameron] health, he's regained a certain sense of wonder he'd lost through the gray days of his illness. Still, it troubled him to realize he's probably never again feel longing--or anything else--as intensely as he's felt it when he was a teenager. The scar tissue thickened. Books, music, friendship, sunsets--about none of those things did he care the way he had once cared." This is a dark and troubling novel. Although some of Russell's characters are capable of ugly, cruel acts, they are never stereotypes but are complex and densely drawn. Jesse, for all his bad deeds, becomes a sympathetic character and someone I desperately wanted to do the right thing. The novel ends ambiguously. What really happened to Cameron? What is going to happen to Jesse? I wanted to know where Jesse will be in ten years? This novel is as good as anything you'll read this year from any writer, gay or straight or from whatever country or region. It haunted me days after I raced through it.
Rating:
Summary: A triumph
Review: Paul Russell has demonstrated his gift for developing unforgettable characters in his previous work, but in his latest novel, he reaches new heights. The plot focuses on the uneasy interactions between the local citizens of a small town in upstate New York, and its growing faction of gay transplants from Manhattan and other urban areas. Russell manages to avoid any of the usual pitfalls inherent in such a plot in several ways. First, he steadfastly refuses to allow any of his characters to be totally good or totally bad. Instead, he allows their actions to show us believable human beings, all of whom have strengths and weaknesses. Second, he has captured the language patterns of the local populace with an uncanny ability. Anyone who has been among people like this will immediately recognize how accurate Russell's ear is. The result is that the contrast between the dialogue of the local people and the gay "elite" is all the more striking because it so truthfully reflects what one would really hear. Russell effectively underscores the differences between the two groups by literally allowing them to speak for themselves. This level of finesse is extremely difficult to achieve and most authors are wise enough to not even attempt it, at least not as thoroughly as Russell has done. That Russell not only takes on the challenge but succeeds so completely is a high tribute to his talent. Finally, his characters themselves seem to rise above the plot, which could have devolved into a simple "us versus them" story in less gifted hands. The novel is never totally plot-driven, but it's not just a series of character studies, either. Instead, Russell has integrated character and plot in a way that one rarely sees. The most amazing thing about all of these accomplishments is that Russell manages to achieve them almost effortlessly. The book is a joy to read, written so beautifully and skillfully that you don't want it to end, but you cannot put it down. "War Against the Animals" joins a handful of other novels that are so outstanding that they surpass the confines of gay-themed genre literature and instead are classics that stand on their own merits.
Rating:
Summary: A Summer in the Zoo
Review: Paul Russell, as we are coming to realize, is an author who is well beyond genre novels. True, he demonstrates a sincere and deep understanding of the gender epiphany that accompanies the approach to puberty - the spectrum of fear, self-loathing, fantasy, desire, confusion and transcendence that weave in and out of every person who comes to grips with sexual preference. In short, he writes with great dignity and grace about 'coming out' whether that be in the parcels of memory of older men or in the active and onstage reality of young lads. As in his highly successful novel THE COMING STORM, Russell explores community/family/bonding in a story of people who fear home either as a loss or as an escape. "Home" as goal is intrinsically part of this story and it is because of that aspect that, while the story is one of gay men in a Redneck dislocation, that makes it universal. And it all is distilled into the events a one summer. Cameron Barnes 'escapes' the choke of Manhattan in moving to Stone Hollow in upstate New York, leaving behind the memories of a love lost to AIDS, and starting life over with a new love that gradually dissolves into transcience. Yet in the meantime (recovering from brushes with death from his own AIDS) he has establishes himself as a fine landscape architect, encourages friends from New York to move to his Arcadia, and begins an encounter with a pair of homespun brothers whom he hires for a summer's work only to discover that the Redneck attitude of the town extends to their mentality. Cameron's past introduction to love is revealed through gently drawn flashbacks and thoughts and it is the slow discovery of similarities that results in his aligning with one of the brothers in a journey towards the younger's (Jesse's) self discovery. The words Russsell employs are never squandered: The title of the book, WAR WITH THE ANIMALS, refers not only to Cameron's struggle in the smalltown mentality of homophobia, but also with the demons of his virus, his past experiences and his present challenges. Russell sublety divides the book into sections: "Et in Arcadia Ego" (and into paradise I go), "The Chaos Garden" ( a descriptor of his work project and his landscape), "Gethsemane" (or agony in the garden before Christ's betrayal), and "Under the Shadow". These subtitles suggest the delicacy of Russell's prose and style. Technically, Russell draws characters that are not only three dimensional, but who, like all humans, have polarities of good and evil that round out their personalites. No one is thoroughly hateful despite some of their atrocious behaviors, and no one is without character flaws no matter how sincere they attempt to pretend. WAR AGAINST THE ANIMALS (note: this is not entitled war "with" the animals) is a highly successful book, one that has much to say about how we choose to lead our lives and the choices we make being mindful of the consequences. Cameron's summer results in a leaping change in the lives of nearly everyone we have met in this story. It is a brave book, a well-conceived story, and an entertaining read. Paul Russell has kept his promise as to his talent potential. I wait for the next novel!
Rating:
Summary: Plot, Character, Theme, Style--and Love(s)...
Review: So why could I not put this book down, to save some of the pleasure until later, without soon greedily picking it up again? Apparently plot, theme, characters, style-and two looks at love. Plot. Lively conflict between smalltown New York redneck villagers and the influx of gay-male weekenders. (Hetero majority vs. homo deviancy.) Also conflict between young native Jesse and his emerging desires within himself, and his straight-culture family tradition. Okay, nothing new there, a universal plot. (Think Romeo-and-Juliet conflicts.) But Russell does it well. He splices nicely the "timely" (the still-present terrible conflict between gay urges and their psychological and sociocultural repression) with the "timeless" (any conflict between Self and Society). Theme. With gay character Cameron being seropositive and having lost lovers to AIDS, it's also about mortality, the most universal plot of all. Okay, also done before. But Russell also does that well. He somehow weaves seamlessly the HIV-specific (Cameron's viral loads and T-cell counts, his lost lovers and friends) into the so-general precariousness of everybody, you and me. Characters. Russell paints people well, both the pencillings of har-de-harumph traditional lowerclass culture, and also the Portrait Gallery of pretty, precious, prissy gay male microculture. Again, done and done again before. But once more, Russell does it as well as any. Style. Throughout the book, Russell can interweave thematically, the echoing motif of "animals" hunted, from vegetarianism to roadkill to Jesse's tortured dreams to symbolic gay-straight warfare. But what I found especially great are at least two other elements worthy of the skill of Russell (especially as seen in his The Coming Storm). Two facets of lust/love. First, the yearning of fortysomething gay AIDS widower Cameron for the local boy-man Jesse. Poignantly done: not neurotic, just natural attraction to his youth and beauty--but also to his own appealing self. Is this love? Russell superbly re-creates oh the pain and ah the pleasure. But especially, the depiction throughout the 300 pages of young Jesse's emerging, awakening, personal (sexual) identity. Never before in any gay fiction have I seen such a superb job of not telling about, but actually showing, "coming out." Of monitoring felt/unfelt urges; of tracking hidden/re-hidden feelings; of tracing ins-and-outs of emotions. On almost every page, Russell inserts superbly this hint and that tint, of Jesse's response, feeling, awareness, denial. It's like sophisticated military intelligence, a Distant Early Warning system... ... or a powerfully-penetrating medical x-ray or MRI... or a chemical test sensitive to slight changes, hues, stains... or a Case History which misses not one intricate step in the unfolding pattern. For me, this depiction of identity-emergence is Russell's top achievement here. And so the book became for me, "literature." Meaning, it did not just discuss (important and enduring) issues and emotions, but it actually "languaged" them--it installed emotions into language so that we readers not only are told, but also feel, those emotions. Simple definition of literature. But rare to achieve in practice. And for me, War With The Animals attains a level of quality attained only by 10-15% of gay fiction. Well-the book seduced me, captivated me. I unfortunately finished it in 24 hours; its power made me intermittently pause to savor what I read and to save the rest, but then its power soon drew me right back to continue. After The Coming Storm, I was apprehensive. Would Russell write as well? Bravo, and thanks, Paul.
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