Boulevard

Rating:
Summary: Loss of Innocence in the Late 70's!
Review: After reading Jim Grimsley's four other previous brilliant novels; WINTER BIRDS, DREAM BOY, COMFORT & JOY, and MY DROWNING; I was thrilled to hear his fifth novel, BOULEVARD, was out. Here's a writer who can grab your attention by weaving a story that is so interesting it is impossible to put down.

This is the story of a naïve pretty, gay boy, Newell, who leaves his hometown of Pastel, Alabama for the big city, in this case, the French Quarter of New Orleans. It's the late 70's, an era of sexual excesses, drugs, partying and discos. This small town boy looses his innocence in short order. He finds an apartment, gets a job in a restaurant, gets fired right away for not putting out for the owner, and then by a stoke of luck, or is it, finds a new job working in a seedy adult bookstore. Here he finds his niche, quickly improves the business for the owner, and transforms himself from a shy country boy to an experienced, handsome, gay Narcissus, who uses his new found sexual appeal to his full advantage. Grimsley vividly develops all the other characters in the story, feeding our imaginations with many colorful characters. There is; Miss Sophie, a wise ugly and old transsexual; Mark, Newell's new drugged out boyfriend; Jack, a sadist who preys on Newell; and Mac, the big fat, ugly manager of the adult bookstore. And, of course, Louise, Newell's landlady, who's having an illegal affair with......well, you will find out. She knows it is wrong and has a hard time putting an end to the affair.

The descriptions and details of the New Orleans French Quarter, which include the street life, the bars, the parties and the people, and the events that unfold, are laid out in beautiful, poetic detail. I believe Jim Grimsley to be the true literary genius of the Southern gay fiction story. Some readers may be offended by details of Newell's sexual liaisons, and erotic, darker side of his steamy affairs, but it is just a reflection of that era and what it was really like in late 70's. This story is both frightening and titillating at the same time, with a real surprising twist. Do Not Miss This One. It will bring Grimsley many new fans. Highly Recommended!!! I look forward to reviewing his sixth novel.

Joe Hanssen

Rating:
Summary: Starts out great but fizzles; not as good as Dream Boy
Review: Being a huge fan of Dream Boy, I was very excited to hear that Jim Grimsley had written a book about my hometown of New Orleans. However, I was disappointed overall and did not think it was as good as his earlier work.

The story starts out strong in portraying Newell as the naive country boy exploring a new city. The description of locations in New Orleans is dead-on, detailing the Bourbon Pub, Cafe Lafitte, Cafe du Monde, Clover Grille, etc. You can really get into his struggles in trying to hold down a job and get settled. You're hooked by the time he finds the job in the adult store.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the book goes off on this loooong tangent about Miss Sophie, the transgendered janitor of the store where Newell works. Who cares!? Page after page, nothing happens but her getting drunk and wandering the streets aimlessly.

I started to think that I was just reading a collection of short stories: first Newell, then Miss Sophie. By the time the story did come back to Newell, I had lost interest. He turned into a queeny whore who had taken a liking to wear dog collars at work and hooking up with drug addicts.

The story ends with a whimper in a tasteless scenario for Newell. It's like Mr. Grimsley had run out of adventures for Newell to go on so he wraps it up fast.

Hopefully his next novel, like Dream Boy, will be more focused...

Rating:
Summary: interesting start then the plot goes awry...
Review: BOULEVARD started out promisingly enough with a young man named Newell coming from small-town Alabama to the "big-city" lights and action of 1970s New Orleans. We follow Newell's day-to-day adventures, such as they are at times, in settling into a life in the Big Easy.

There's a motley cast of characters, many of whom befriend Newell and help him find his way in his new gay, adult life. The few sex scenes found in the book can hardly be described as graphically explicit, so ignore those reviewers who make such claims. Those scenes are more descriptive of the places than the sex acts taking place.

At about the half-way point, the author introduces an irrelevant and mostly uninteresting side-story about the transvestite janitor who cleans the adult bookstore/theater where Newell works. Her story takes up too many pages and doesn't move the action along at all.

Overall I felt rather depressed for Newell after reading BOULEVARD. This is not so much a tragedy, but it is a rather sad gay young man's life from a different era.

Rating:
Summary: Outrageous Author
Review: Don't buy any of Jim's book. This author read excerpts from a sexual explicit new book of his where children were in the audience, most notably to me...my 10 year old niece. Absolutely unbelievable. Granted he has the right to express or write as he chooses, but using a bit of taste as to where he reads sexually explicit material seems to not infringe on that. What an ***! I also observed at least a dozen other young children in the audience. This was..wow...completely in appropriate.

Drew

Rating:
Summary: Great read, more for entertainment than anything else.
Review: Grimsley is a beautifully gifted writer. This novel, Boulevard, lacks his previous explorations on the quiet desperation of true love. It does, however, keep the wonderfully constructed portraits of characters and the interesting plotline. The story traces an awkward, somewhat cliche, coming-of-age of a country boy who comes to the Big Easy. By the end of the novel, one is not sure if the boy has really changed, or if he has just become more 'experienced' in terms of cultural exchange/experience, etc. But perhaps Grimsley's finer point is made on that assumption: escape allows you to experience something new...but escaping will not change who or what you are.

His power lies in his vocabulary and the languid, melancholy descriptions of heartache. The twisted characters he introduces and the interesting plot twists are not to be missed. Ironically, it is one of the minor characters (who actually gets more presence than most minor characters would) that charmed me the most. An aging drag queen comments on the lives of the characters around her, on her own life, and the quiet damnation of being an older transgendered man.

Emotionally, I do not cling to this novel as I did Comfort and Joy, Winter Birds, and Dream Boy, but it did not seek out to make the reader cling to it. It is an expertly told story.

Rating:
Summary: It's not profound, but a fine add. to Grimsley's catalogue
Review: Grimsley's writing makes this story more interesting than it would be in the hands of someone less adept -- he successfully creates this N'Orleans atmosphere, specifically having to do with a handful of gay hangouts that our main character Newell will discover. There's a hammy characterization of many of the characters -- we can practically feel the venality of Mac, the manager of the bookstore where Newell works. Occasionally the language is affected ("they couldn't be called private at all"), but I think that for the most part it's necessary for giving the novel the druggy mood it has -- the feeling of being on acid, or coming off a hangover, or in the midst of sexual ecstasy. It's a cast of eccentrics, and the affectation works in helping create their familiar mannerisms.

It's not a bad effort (though someone had written "what a dull book" on one of the last pages in my copy), but it doesn't have much momentum, that sense of urgency that "Dream Boy" has. It's a story that exists in a world (which I think is very well-created -- the bookstore is a character in itself, with characters twirling out of it), except what happens in that world isn't terribly compelling. There is a continued interest in the notion of escaping oneself, whether through literal or metaphysical means, and it's a nice play on the boy-moves-to-city theme, but it doesn't transcend it into something truly special -- it exists as something pleasantly strange.

Rating:
Summary: Apathetic
Review: Having read all of Jim Grimsley's previous novels, I opened "Boulevard" with sweet anticipation. Unfortunately, I was somewhat disappointed.

While Grimsley has perfected his character development in previous books, and has that whole southern storyteller thing down, I found "Boulevard" to be confusing and meandering. While the initial 100 pages are Grimsley at his best (drawing a deep and complex character in Newell), the introduction of the subsequent characters was distracting. By the time I got to page 200, I no longer cared what happened to Newell, or his innocence...or especially his newfound and somewhat sociopathic boyfriend.

I would recommend any of Grimsley's previous works before touting this one.

Rating:
Summary: Not Worth Walking Down this "Boulevard"
Review: I am a big fan of Jim Grimsley's work but was disappointed with his latest novel which reads juvenilely and works more effectively as a character study than an actual novel. I kept thinking as I read this novel that Mr. Grimsley was writing a screenplay or a script for the theatrical stage. What I do like in this work was the liberation of the central character Newell, who comes to New Orleans seeking a life he can only dream about, hence escaping the small town life of Pastel, Alabama. In some respects Newell's life mirrors my own experience when I moved to Chicago. Newell's sexual odyssey is what drives the novel, and the other notable characters as Ms. Sophia (A mentally deranged transvestite who works in the adult bookstore with Newell) Mac (the greasy, loud, bossy manager of the adult bookstore) and Mark (Newell's on-then-off again druggey boyfriend) fill in as bit players developed well enough to the point of passing interest for the reader. The ending of the novel seems a bit rushed and not well thought out as Newell decided to return to small town life, defeated by all the sexual imagery and freedom that surrounded him on a daily basis. There is no build for Newell's decision and hence, no empathy for me as a reader. I can only hope that Mr. Gimsley next literary effort will be as rich as the one I experienced with "Dream Boy" and "Comfort and Joy."

Rating:
Summary: Disjointed, lost its focus
Review: I am a fan of Jim Grimsley's work, I throrougly enjoyed his novel DREAM BOY and I looked forward to reading this book. It started out promising, following the life of Newell, a country boy trying to find his place in a big city.

It focused on him trying to find a place, find a job, have enough money to be able to pay rent, real problems. Then he started interacting, he found a job at a restaurant where he was later fired for not wanting to get involved with his boss. He finds a job at an adult book store, where he befriends various people. The book starts to lose its focus around here, going on to Miss Sophie, a transgendered janitor with problems. Getting drunk, wandering aimlessly wondering. What happened? By the time it got back to Newell I had lost my interest, the focus of the book was lost right then and there. It was like separate stories, that didn't quite intertwine quite well. When it got back to Newell he became unlikeable, a queeny type character who hooked up with drug dealers and liked to wear dog collars. What happened to the character? It was like two completely different people, the Newell from the beginning of the book and then the person he transformed into. It was a hard book to follow. Hopefully his next novel is more impressive, this had promise but it lost its focus.

Rating:
Summary: Sexy story of a boy from Alabama
Review: I could not put this book down. Great story and even better characters. Explores life in New Orleans during the late 70s and it is quite the bizarre.. full of sensous moments and characters that are deeper than their appearance, I highly recommend this book.