Rating: 
Summary: The Beauty of Life
Review: (...)Unstructured in style, 'The Beauty of Men' reads easily. Yet, the concept is disturbing. Lark, the primary character who I never came to like very much, realizes the life he associates with is gone. And, with the passing of friends he shall be forgotten, left to exist in a nether world where others see through or past him. Never to again feel the comfort of an unbidden touch or hug. Philosophers often look at life as a progression of events. Individuals become themselves and if lucky, come to some understanding of that self prior to death. Insight, perhaps sadly, is not always profound. Sometimes it is a slow realization, just not yet noticed, that should be obvious. Lark lives a less idealistic life. He lived his life and found it to be less than he hoped it might have been. He comes to understand that each individual is merely a part of society and draws his acceptance, and hence self worth, from it. Reality can be hard to swallow. Society is the entity that determines the extent of individual happiness. When Lark passes out of beauty and youth, he just vanishes from the scene. He wakes up everyday to his invisibility. Invisibility is a factor of age; the aging of the body. Lark's invisibility emerges as his youthful beauty fades. Lark laments the benefits of being straight and old; the support of children and grandchildren. His life becomes centered on loneliness, rejection and self recrimination; bitter at age carrying him away from those he desires. Mr. Holleran communicates a sense of how homosexuals function in areas not resplendent with bars, institutions, friends, youth and beauty. He delves into fears, and realizations, of living where there are few similar others and the frustration of those few being dismissive or distant. This is a story of loneliness filled with moments of expectation inevitably unfulfilled; a story of death and loved ones who desert via their final exits; a story of fear that life has been lived and the whole point missed. Most poignantly 'The Beauty of Men' brings an understanding that the entire affair could be just around the corner for each of us. A well written easily read autobiography? A frightening proem of days ahead? Or an understanding that youthful beauty can make a transition to wisdom, grace and resources? 'The Beauty of Men' is a prodigious addition to the shelves of Gay Lit. It is not an adoration of youth, beauty and time. It is an insight into the possibilities of aging alone and gay. Holleran reaches for an area most of us are headed for. And, the road ain't pretty.
Rating: 
Summary: The Ravages of Time
Review: Although I agree with other reviewers that this novel was quite depressing all the way through, it is all too accurate in its depiction of what happens to gay men when they are well into their forties and unpartnered. The protagonist Lark was unfortunate enough to have experienced both the huge loss of many friends to the initial AIDS epidemic and the present-day reality of the fragmentation of gay culture. As always, Holleran's prose is touching and wonderful; his Dancer From the Dance is my favorite gay novel.
Rating:
Summary: Touching tale of growing older
Review: Andrew Holleran has succeeded in this book to bring to life the loneliness of an older gay man living outside the bigger cities. Through flash backs we get an insight into his earlier life and how he eventually ended back home caring for his elderly infirm mother. Loneliness isolation fascination for the unobtainable are all cleverly covered as the reader is led through a sad life. The biggest sin in the gay world is to grow old and Hollern depicts this with much thought and feeling. Highly recommended to any age group
Rating:
Summary: Dark Truths
Review: For someone who grew up and came out in "the sticks", I can recognize these lonely and unlovely characters all too well. How fine and brave that someone had the insight to tell thier story. There are many Larks languishing in the barren wastes of this homophobic country and this book is like a prayer for them. Face this music, and become more human...
Rating:
Summary: Grains of truth
Review: Holleran is a terrific writer, and I am most impressed with his insights into the gay experience. As a middle aged gay man, his observations are right on. When he writes of an older gay man's invisibility, he hits the nail on the head. This is a man dealing with the death of his friends in New York, and moving back to small town USA to care for his elderly mother. The dislocation and desolution of his life are the core of the novel. He moves through the novel's landscape, mixing the harsh reality of his life with day dreams. He is so human in the way that he sees the stark truth, has no illusions and yet sets himself up for a fall, like with his obsessive love for Becker. His mother becomes the vessal for his love, and his sole purpose in life. Again, contradiction surfaces when he feels the oppressive nature of her illness on his life, and yet realizes that his love and duty to her is what keeps him going. A great read on so many levels. It explores a gay man dealing with aging and lonliness, the loss of his youth, the death of friends through AIDS and a love between a mother and son. There are no easy answers here. Judging by others
comments on this book, in the age of Oprah we are all supposed to rise above it all, when maybe just surviving is all we can manage.
Rating: 
Summary: Finely wrought writing, but disappointing reading
Review: I came to this book expecting much; my first experience with Holleran was Dancer from the Dance, which lyrically portrays the Manhattan-Fire Island scene of the late 1970s, an age that probably will never again be relived. However, this book is more than a downer, it is almost bloody pointless in its despair and regret. I tried to get through the book as quickly as possible to put the experience behind me and move on to greener pastures. There was certainly more than a tinge of regret and despair in Dancer, but this book is nothing but. The main character has nothing in his life, and while the masses of men lead lives of quiet desparation, one does not necessarily want to spend 300 pages reading about it. Quite a disappointment, even though the descriptive passages are quite evocative and the book as a whole is well-written. Had only Holleran not been quite so depressed, something he should have been over by the middle 1990s when he wrote this, it would have been a much better read. I would not recommend it unless the reader is a dyed-in-the-wool Andrew Holleran fan who desires to read everything in his oeuvre.
Rating: 
Summary: Spare me the Angst!
Review: I found nothing at all likable about the protagonist in this anti-fable of gay life. The reader is given no opportunity to dodge as the barrage of self-pity and guilt rains down from the author. The book, however, ends miraculously well. I just wish I hadn't had to sink my boots in all of Holleran's mud. I was really depressed at the picture painted by Holleran, so much so that when the subject of the protagonist's obsession finally confronts and reviles the protagonist, I want to applaud. I too wanted to deny the protagonist from my life, because I, like the obsessee, could feel nothing for the protagonist. If only there was something to learn from this book
Rating:
Summary: Sad but interesting
Review: I will say from the outset that this is probably one of the saddest books I have ever read. I kept waiting for the redemption, for the turning of the wheel, but found only the myth of sisyphus. As the character slowly toils up the hill pushing not one, but many rocks- his mother, his dead lovers/friends, his own age and guilt at still being alive, and the slow, painful fantasy of his new 'lover.' At each turn of the wheel, I felt as if I was being wrenched deeper into oblivian. I found the scene in the bath house in jacksonville to be the most moving- each man settling for that which his age will capture- so different from their youths when they commanded the scene. Overall I found the book worth reading, but one that should not be read with any sharp objects nearby
Rating: 
Summary: Holleran let me down!
Review: Not to offend the generation of gay men that this book presumes to speak for but it was whiney and pathetic! Its got elements of all of Holleran's stories (which are all just different facets of Dancer From the Dance) but its not a viewpoint I particularly care for. It takes itself too seriously, again, like its the voice of a generation. Christopher Isherwood did that in A Single Man and it was bad enough. Holleran is doing it and being whiny! Whine whine whine, AIDS, AIDS, AIDS. Superficial, shallow musings about being superficial and shallow. And whereas Dancer From the Dance had that unapologetic feeling and clearly stated it was looking at a microcosm of society, The Beauty of Men is completely apologetic and never bothers to make the distinction that not all gay men are lonely, dying queens humiliating themselves and feeling ashamed. Its ridiculous. Holleran *really* let me down. It picked up SOMEWHAT by the end but not enough to justify the whole book. And unfortunately Holleran's writing style that can describe the decadent setting of New York so beautifully does little justice to more rural settings like those of the book. Here's what I have to say about Andrew Holleran: Read Dancer From the Dance. If you loved it and want more of it, browse through In September the Light Changes. And I mean browse. And if you're *STILL* in love with Holleran give Nights in Aruba a shot. And basically don't EVER read The Beauty of Men. If you think you want to father Andrew Holleran's children and can't imagine not liking a book of his then read A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood and ask yourself if you want to read the exact same story plot but really long, whiney, and handled badly by Holleran (despite his godlike status he must hold in your mind to even *consider* reading this piece of trash).
Rating:
Summary: After the Dance...
Review: The Beauty of Men is the painful story of Lark, a survivor of an AIDS decimated group of friends in New York. Middle aged and still in shock from his enormous loss, Lark has moved to northern Florida to care for his paralyzed mother. The emptiness of Lark's life there prompts a deep exploration of his past and his current state as an aging gay man. Depressed and in a state of "identity limbo" Lark finds brief solace at the local boat ramp tearoom and in his fantasies of a relationship with one-night-stand Becker. Given this brief synopsis it should come as no surprise that The Beauty of Men is not a lighthearted read, but it is a compelling and rewarding one. Lark's profound sense of loss and remorse is tempered by both undeniable truth and periodic humor.
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