Man About Town

Rating:
Summary: Gay, mid-forties, in Washington DC
Review: How wonderful to discover a fine novelist by chance. I had not heard of Merlis before, but was recommended "Man About Town" . And what a joy it was to encounter the delights offered by this fine storyteller and wordsmith. This is a gay novel of substance, far above the usual "here we are being glamorous and dancing on the glass floor" party boy focus of most gay authors. I will be embarking on both of Merlis's other books straight away. I encourage you to do likewise. Mr Merlis, I thank you for what is now one of my favourite reading experiences.

Rating:
Summary: A discovery!
Review: How wonderful to discover a fine novelist by chance. I had not heard of Merlis before, but was recommended "Man About Town" . And what a joy it was to encounter the delights offered by this fine storyteller and wordsmith. This is a gay novel of substance, far above the usual "here we are being glamorous and dancing on the glass floor" party boy focus of most gay authors. I will be embarking on both of Merlis's other books straight away. I encourage you to do likewise. Mr Merlis, I thank you for what is now one of my favourite reading experiences.

Rating:
Summary: Not Bad
Review: I always wonder when I'm reading books with ..., sad-sack characters: are we supposed to sympathesize with this person, or is he being written about as an object of satire? Does the author identify with this character, or is it more of a cautionary tale? The main character of this book is pretty unredeemable (if a book is supposed to be about the most interesting character a writer can imagine on the most important day of his life, well, this book doesn't hold up). And, to be frank, not much happens. That said, it's well written and occasionally insightful. I finished it, which is saying something when it comes to most gay books. Would I recommend it? Not really, unless maybe you're a big fan of the author. And for what it's worth, my partner feels exactly the same way.

Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: I'm very disappointed in this book. His previous book An Arrow's Flight was pure brilliance and this is pure boredom. Very disappointing.

Rating:
Summary: Another "The Way We Live Now" Story
Review: It's the mid-nineties. Joel Lingeman is gay and 45, makes good money with a job in Congress, has a receding hairline and an expanding waistline, likes to eat fatty foods, is in a relationship of 15 years with Sam but is so out of touch with his lover that he is totally surprised and blown away when Sam leaves him for a twenty-three year old. He opines that he is probably alive today because of this stagnating relationship since he and Sam, by their monotonous monogamy, have managed to avoid the plague. Joel is a civilian example of the military's "Don't ask; don't tell" in that he is out to practically nobody but his friends. In his defense, he does manage to come out when backed into a corner. One more thing: he discovers sex with African Americans. He is for the most part unappealing but totally believable. Unfortunately, he is pretty much like most every gay person I have ever known in D. C. They have some mid-level position connected with the government, they wouldn't be seen leaving Lambda Rising Bookstore, but they'll dress up in a tuxedo in a flash and attend an expensive gay fundraiser that does not use the word "gay" in any of its advertisements. One suspects they are closet Log Cabin Republicans. Sound familiar?

Yet in spite of this less than admirable set of characters, Mark Merlis has managed to spin an interesting yarn, which is proof positive that he is an exceptionally good writer. He appears to have gotten the cynicism of lawmakers on Capitol Hill and their underlings accurate as well. I had a good time trying to figure out of some of the lawmakers Merlis describes were based on real people.

Merlis is one of the half dozen or so gay writers whose novels I eagerly await to read.

Rating:
Summary: Big dissapointment
Review: Joel is an anti-hero. At 45, he's described by his new, young and hunky boyfriend as an "old white guy." He falls far short of the unwritten but absolute requirements that a gay man must have in order to be a player. Nevertheless, Joel is someone to contend with and Merlis outlines his adventures and self-appraisal with touching and bitter clarity.

The story begins when, after 15 years, Joel's boyfriend leaves him for a "younger man." Thus Joel embarks on an oddyssey which includes a search for emotional and sexual contacts as well as an even more elusive search for the "Sante Fe boy," a model he saw in a 1964 swimwear ad who never ceased to fascinate Joel while at the same time making him feel outside everything that is both masculine and fraternal.

Although it is described as dull and ineffectual, Joel actually has an interesting job in the Office of Legislative Analysis. Joel complains that the job is useless, but it is obvious that he takes delight in the workings on Capitol Hill and his part in it. When he is called upon to give advice on a Medicare ruling that would exclude benefits to AIDS patients based on prior sexual activity regarding "personal responsibility," Joel is faced with a moral dilemma. He finds the proposition absurd: "once you start down that line, there's no end to it: smokers, drinkers..." However, he can see both sides: "... to a man in Montana ... there was honestly something disturbing about the spectacle of people partying ??? pumping themselves up, dropping a few chemicals, getting it on in open defiance of every recommended precaution ??? and then handing Uncle Sam the bill." The atmosphere in Washington with its political background and characters, its variety of men ??? some of whom head straight from work to get drunk at the Hill Club ??? is telling and cynical.

When he finally locates the one-time model, who now is a grandfather living in New Jersey, he visits him and experiences a moment of defining revelation. "Petras has radiated beauty one day in 1963," Merlis writes, "and in 1964 Joel had caught a glimpse of it...by the time Joel saw it, it was already gone." He begins to realize the purpose of all this: we are on the planet so that "like a man watching from light years away the flash of a star that had died a billion years before ...[it] would not pass away unobserved." Not bad for a non-player like Joel. Now, if Merlis could just get him to join a gym and floss his teeth...

Rating:
Summary: THE THOUGHTFUL ODYSSEY OF AN ANTI-HERO
Review: Joel is an anti-hero. At 45, he's described by his new, young and hunky boyfriend as an "old white guy." He falls far short of the unwritten but absolute requirements that a gay man must have in order to be a player. Nevertheless, Joel is someone to contend with and Merlis outlines his adventures and self-appraisal with touching and bitter clarity.

The story begins when, after 15 years, Joel's boyfriend leaves him for a "younger man." Thus Joel embarks on an oddyssey which includes a search for emotional and sexual contacts as well as an even more elusive search for the "Sante Fe boy," a model he saw in a 1964 swimwear ad who never ceased to fascinate Joel while at the same time making him feel outside everything that is both masculine and fraternal.

Although it is described as dull and ineffectual, Joel actually has an interesting job in the Office of Legislative Analysis. Joel complains that the job is useless, but it is obvious that he takes delight in the workings on Capitol Hill and his part in it. When he is called upon to give advice on a Medicare ruling that would exclude benefits to AIDS patients based on prior sexual activity regarding "personal responsibility," Joel is faced with a moral dilemma. He finds the proposition absurd: "once you start down that line, there's no end to it: smokers, drinkers..." However, he can see both sides: "... to a man in Montana ... there was honestly something disturbing about the spectacle of people partying ' pumping themselves up, dropping a few chemicals, getting it on in open defiance of every recommended precaution ' and then handing Uncle Sam the bill." The atmosphere in Washington with its political background and characters, its variety of men ' some of whom head straight from work to get drunk at the Hill Club ' is telling and cynical.

When he finally locates the one-time model, who now is a grandfather living in New Jersey, he visits him and experiences a moment of defining revelation. "Petras has radiated beauty one day in 1963," Merlis writes, "and in 1964 Joel had caught a glimpse of it...by the time Joel saw it, it was already gone." He begins to realize the purpose of all this: we are on the planet so that "like a man watching from light years away the flash of a star that had died a billion years before ...[it] would not pass away unobserved." Not bad for a non-player like Joel. Now, if Merlis could just get him to join a gym and floss his teeth...

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing third effort
Review: Man About Town is Mark Merlis's third novel, and the follow-up to the Lammie winner "An Arrow's Flight" (in my library, still unread).

I much enjoyed Merlis's first novel, "American Studies," and have looked forward to the trade paperback release of "Man About Town." (One of the many quirks to my character is that I prefer trade paperback to all other book editions. Don't ask why - I don't know).

"Man About Town" is plagued by a vaguely unlikeable narrator. This is frankly a daring choice. I'm not sure how easy it is to read a first-person narrative with a narrator who is plagued by so many neuroses and insecurities.

For me, this served as much of a cautionary tale - especially with respect to the prospect of being middle-aged and single in a gay world where middle-aged men are largely invisible.

Troubling to me were the continual references to how Joel, the narrator, had "let himself go" - implying that he was grossly overweight. What constitued grossly overweight? His waist size was 35. If/when I'm in a 35, it will be a day for rejoicing. This book, despite exploring issues of older gay men on the outskirts of the gym/AF culture, still, in my humble opinion, promotes the extreme lookism that permeates modern gay life.

This is an interesting irony in a book that idolizes the 50s/60s gay ideal that was much less gym-crazed (ie, men with natural beauty/bodies versus gym-crafted six packs). Even though it harkens back nostalgically to that time, the emphasis with how fat, lazy, and slobbish Joel is (with his size 35 waist) is insulting.

Why couldn't Joel have a 35 inch waist and be invisible and a good person? Who took pride in his appearance? He was a complete mess, as evidenced by his fatness/slopiness. He would have been just as invisible had he been well put together and fat. The latent racism was also alarming. Joel was a very dislikeable character, despite how much I might have understood/empathized with his situation.

The execution of the novel was expert, but sometimes I wonder about the plot choices that were made. In this case, I would give 2 stars to the plot/subject choices, and 3 stars for artistic merit.


Rating:
Summary: A portrait of gay life in Washington
Review: The main protagonist of the last book I read was desperately searching for love and substance and he had hurled himself headfirst into a world of shallow relationships and easy sex. The main character of this story, however, is probably just the opposite. Sheltered from gay life for years, and settled in a cushy government job with a cozy circle of drinking buddies, Joel doesn't have much idea of what the world is like outside of Dupont Circle, the Hill Club, and reading the Congressional Record. Poor Joel, he looks longingly at the Chelsea boys with their muscular bodies and their body piercings and he just feels as though life has left him behind. After his long term lover, Sam leaves him after 15 years, he not only has to cope with, eating too much and getting fat, and the ant-gay legislation going through Congress, but he develops an obsession with a picture of a man in a sexy swimsuit from a magazine that came out back in 1964.

Man About Town is remarkably whimsical and tenderhearted in its portrayal of an aging gay man, who feels as though he's let life pass him by. This story is good, not just for an insider's view of the goings on in Washington, and the cynical descriptions of how legislation is formed through the lobbying of special interest groups. But it is also good for showing what many aging gay men are going through, or have gone through. Joel's obsession with the swim suited man in the magazine Man About Town, is an attempt to recapture his past, and to come to terms with the fact that ' yes, he could have done things differently. Joel's journey is touching, comic and deftly observed, as he questions his relationship with Sam, and his life as he drastically tries to get back into the 'dating game' by dating men again, and of course, running off to Zippers Bar every chance he can get.

I've never been to Washington, but Merlis bought the city, and the goings on in Capital Hill vividly to life for me. He has a nice, easy economical style, and an excellent ear for natural conversation. The secondary characters that weave in and out of Joel's life are also deftly observed: Kevin, Sam's new boyfriend is young, insecure and dresses like a rapper; Andrew, Joel's colleague, ambitious and still in the closet, and prepared to compromise his principles for his career; and then there's Michael, young, black, and confessing to like older men like Joel. There's much to enjoy in this book, as Merlis takes us on a very special journey with a rather ordinary but wise man.

Michael

Rating:
Summary: A beach "novel of ideas"
Review: The voice here is the same likable voice of Merlis's wonderful first novel, AMERICAN STUDIES, and like the earlier novel, MAN ABOUT TOWN focuses on true-to-life people in realistic circumstances, this time in a political setting. The novel is set in Washington, DC, in 1995 (a historical setting that both serves several of the novel's central themes and conveniently distances it from GWB-era policies and issues--much as gay novels in the 1980s tended to depict gay life pre-AIDS).

Besides the comfortable narratorial voice, the novel offers intelligent (though not forcefully "intellectual") musings on age, monogamy, racism, wealth, and hero-worship, among other timely issues. Again like the first novel, the author's focus is on older gay men, entranced and puzzled (and occasionally appalled) by the ways of youth--preeminently (in this novel) one's own youth and how quickly it evaporates. The main character combines politically progressive outrage with a settled, mostly conservative life style--the latter, much to his chagrin: he'd like to be more bohemian and eventually makes efforts to loosen up.

Like Merlis's previous novel, AN ARROW'S FLIGHT, the plot of MAN ABOUT TOWN hinges on a parody of the heroic quest, and here is where the novel falls apart a bit, nodding in too many directions and letting go of a number of plot points (and characters). However, the book kept me with it till the end, and although I might have personally preferred a tighter narrative structure, it was ultimately enough to spend some time with a protagonist who, however imperfectly, attempts to realize himself and his long-dormant desires and gain some grasp on the shifting events of history and, more especially, his life.