Shameless

Rating:
Summary: Gay man gets "early midlife crisis" and goes wild ...
Review: "Shameless" could have been subtitled "Gay Men Behaving Badly, When They Are Old Enough To Know Better." It follows a 32 year old man, an advertising executive who considered himself rather conservative, who goes through an emotionally-jarring breakup with his younger boyfriend, who leaves him for a hard-partying hustler of his own age. This triggers a kind of "early midlife crisis" ... which I have actually witnessed in several gay acquaintances over the years ... which causes him to "get buff" and then go on a hedonistic binge of drugs, alcohol, casual sex and wild partying.

The evolution of Martin (the main character) is paralleled by his straight best friend/fag hag Caroline, who becomes mad at herself for ruining what could have been a great relationship, and goes on a self-destrictive binge of drugs herself. Martin also becomes more and more like his friend John, whom Martin previously looked down on as being shallow and insincere in his sexual/romantic habits. The novel touches on drug use (especially "K" and "E", the ones most favored by party boys, both gay and straight), some tentative voyages into the gay S&M scene, a visit by Martin's father (who gets into the partying as well), and being "out" in the workplace.

It's not great literature, but is a somewhat entertaining light read, one most suited to those like the pre-change Martin who want to sample the "party boy" life for a while (Not my style, but, from what I have been told, the depiction is fairly accurate.) By the end of the story, Martin and some other characters learn there are consequences to their irresponsible actions, and Martin and Caroline both go back to their earlier less-adverturous personas.

Personally, I considered the back cover notes to be an accurate depiction of what the novel was about. "Sex and the City" did feature at least one character whose sexual appetite and choices were rather far-fetched, and the same is true with some characters in "Queer As Folk." Neither of those shows claimed to depict the behavior of all or most single heterosexual women (or, for QAF, gay men), but there is no doubt that some people like that DO exist. If you care not to know anything about them, and want to pretend they don't exist, then perhaps this book isn't for you. But I would not criticize the author or publisher for presenting it, as is, for those who may be more open minded about the subject.

Rating:
Summary: Mad romp through the seven deadly sins
Review: Although I'd like to claim that the liberal dousing of four-letter words in "Shameless" left me blushing, it didn't. On the other hand, if you find detailed and somewhat lurid descriptions of body parts and functions distasteful, you may not find this book as entertaining and laugh-out-loud funny as I did. All in all, reading this first novel by Paul Burston was rather like having an uninhibited, raucously humorous drama queen, who has no fear of using cliche-ridden narrative ("There is no Mr. Right...There is only Mr. Right Now"), relate the most recent dirt on mutual acquaintances. I had such a person in mind, and heard his voice throughout. If you haven't such an acquaintance, or can't imagine one, you might find Burston's narrative over the top and just a bit tedious -- but then, so is my uninhibited acquaintance.

Martin, who "had always been considered fairly handsome (usually by straight women, admittedly)", is in his early thirties and believes he has an ideal life: a moderately well-paying job, a nice apartment and an attractive live-in boyfriend who shares expenses. One evening, Christopher, the live-in, does not show up for a dinner he had scheduled with Martin. After waiting awhile, Martin, thoroughly drunk, returns home to find that the dinner was a ruse to get him out of the house; Christopher is gone to live with his new love. With that, Martin's financial security evaporates, along with his emotional safety blanket.

Martin's first impulse is to call his best friend, Caroline, "a professional woman, the only woman in her family to have carved out any kind of decent life for herself, and she had the fat salary, the company car and the platinum American Express card to prove it." Fat and unattractive through her teen years, she has had virtually every part of her body massaged, relaxed, beaten or surgically enhanced into shape. Fate intervenes, however, when Martin realizes that Caroline has probably gone to bed. Instead, he calls John, a gay flight attendant, or "trolly dolly" in gay parlance, whom Burston portrays as the epitome of gay self-absorption, and malice. Had Martin reached Caroline first, the story might have taken a different direction. As it is, in his depressed state, he is vulnerable to John's less-than-sage advice, which is simply, to drown his sorrows in hedonism. What follows is a mad romp through the seven deadly sins, with an emphasis on gluttony in the form of sex and drugs.

Although Martin's plight is at the center of the story, Burston parallels it with Caroline's relationship with Graham, whom she suspects of being gay, and John's with Fernando, the Brazilian drug dealer. The three story-lines mingle, sit-com style: a medium-sized piece about one of the three main characters ends with a what-happens-then moment, and then switches to an episode with one of the other two. Burston uses a variety of writerly techniques to join the episodes, which help minimize the bumps that could easily detract from that particular style.

Caroline and Martin emerge as alter-egos, who, were they to sit down and have a long talk, could offer each other sensible advice, and probably save each other some of the headache they eventually endure. No doubt, Martin could have illuminated Caroline on the mysterious C.L.A.G. and saved her the embarrassment of "outing" Graham to his best friend from college. However, Burston cleverly keeps them apart until the seventeenth of nineteen chapters, after which, the story hurries to a satisfying, if slightly foreseeable, close, somewhat reminiscent of a morality play in which Everyman wins and the devil, in this case John, gets his due.

To fill out the story, Burston has a group of fully-developed supporting characters. Martin's would-be activist father adds comedy every time he appears. Among the gay characters are Neil, Martin's new roommate, who accidentally breaks the toilet by expelling two steel balls (you have to read it to believe it), David, a mooch who exchanges gossip for drugs and alcohol, and Ben, the sweet, if untidy, answer to Martin's woes.

No doubt, Londoners, particularly gay Londoners, will catch some inside jokes that the rest of of miss. Even so, I found "Shameless" to be a quick, very enjoyable read.

Rating:
Summary: Left not caring
Review: I found this book somewhat difficult to read. Many books you just want to keep reading and not put down. Not this one. It was okay. At the end of the book I found myself not really caring what happened to the characters. The main story line was diluted with the presence of two sub-plots. The three plot lines intersected from time to time. In the end I think that the lack of focus on the main story really made for poor story telling. The reolution at the end really left you wanting too. It was all very Hollywood. The basic plot is very simple. Guy's boyfriend dumps him. Guy falls into lifestyle of sex, drugs, and clubbing. Guy desperately looks for someone to love. And, big surprise, guy finds him in the end. And, they all live happily ever after. Well, the last part is left up to you imagination, since the author doesn't telly you. You are left really wondering what happens, but then again it does leave room for a sequal.

Rating:
Summary: HUMOROUS BUT DEFINATELY NOT GLAMOROUS
Review: I have recently read SHAMELESS by Paul Burston. I think the book acurately documents the protagonist's, (Martin) journey into the wild and wickedly hedonistic world of club/drug culture, concluding with him managing to see the futility of the scene after being falsely lured in by the initial euphoria of the drugs. Some may accuse this book of glamorizing club-drug use, but I would have to disagree. Maybe it's just me, but I don't find someone's mistaking toenail shavings for coke and snorting it very glamorous, although I have to admit the author related the incident most humorously. I've been around more than enough to have known my fair share of characters like the ones in this book, and yes they were backstabbers and liars and cheats but they knew how to party and make you feel welcome. I know the special-tribe like lure of this scene quite well. I found the book honest and real, and I enjoyed how the author used humor to skewer, not glamorize, the entire scene.

Rating:
Summary: "You can never have enough coke!"
Review: Martin, Caroline and John are the three central characters in this sly, irreverent, and totally contemporary farce that may leave some of the more conservative readers in shock. Their sex and drug fuelled escapades throughout inner city London are indeed "shameless" and their lives - full of soap-like drama - are without a doubt, hedonistic and almost dangerous. First published in England in 2001, Shameless is like a mini-gay expose on the lives of young, hip, urban groovers who obviously have lots of time on their hands. Author Paul Burston, with dead-on honesty and a cheeky wit, has his characters looking for love in all the wrong places while getting high on ecstasy, and coke, indulging in toilet sex, and contracting sexually transmitted diseases!

Martin has recently split with his boyfriend Christopher. His vacuous friend John has been trying to get Martin to have fun out the fast-paced London gay scene. Martin is a nice down to earth guy, who is reasonably good looking and has a job that he likes. But when Christopher leaves him, Martin's financial security evaporates along with his emotional safely blanket, and he's forced to rely much more on John, Caroline and his new roommate Neil. It doesn't help that Martin has an activist father who wants to celebrate gay pride with him. With his new age philosophy, his hippy ways, and his modern ideas, Martin reacts to him with a fond mixture of affection and embarrassment.

Caroline is Martin's best friend and confidant. She has a professional, high paying job, has a somewhat strained and awkward relationship with her mother, and recently suspects that her boyfriend, Graham might be gay. Caroline is also having a love affair with cocaine: "you can never have enough cocaine," she says merrily to Martin one night over dinner. Caroline and Martin's stories parallel throughout the narrative, as Martin hesitatingly gets caught up in the gay drug and party scene, and Caroline, sex starved and high on cocaine, turns to ex-boyfriends for sexual kicks. Of course, their escapades land them in all sorts of trouble as their paths gradually converge and they learn much from their experiences.

John represents the selfish, devilish aspect of the story. A gay, gossipy flight attendant, or "trolley dolly," John spends his time chasing after men with gym-built bodies, who have money and lots of drugs. And while he pretends to confess love to Fernando, the Brazilian drug dealer, he is also cruising the Internet and hooking up with men whenever he can. John is the epitome of gay self-absorption, narcissism, and wickedness - and Burston captures his character perfectly. A person like John doesn't particularly give Martin the best advice, which is simply, to drown his sorrows in hedonism, and Martin, feeling kind of vulnerable, doesn't really stop to think whether John is the right person to take advice from. Much hilarity follows, particularly when Martin starts taking men home, and somewhat inadvertently, gets caught up in the world of partying and one-night-stands.

The narrative effortlessly flows along, with sections of interior monologue doing a good job of highlighting the insecurities of each character. Cleverly switching back and forwards between storylines, Shameless - for some readers - may resemble a script for a gay sitcom, rather than a fully-fledged novel. But the story remains involving and there are lots of surprises that will keep readers entertained. This is a quick, enjoyable, and quite funny read that will appeal to a lot of people who are familiar with the urban, gay party scene in any big city. Mike Leonard January 05.


Rating:
Summary: Absolutely wretched
Review: Shameless left me speechless. This book is the single most offensive piece of crap masquerading as gay fiction I have ever read. To make matters worse, it got a review in the New York Times Book Review-a GOOD review. This is troubling because so few gay novels ever are reviewed in the Times and those that do--The Year of Ice by Brian Malloy comes to mind--get bad reviews despite being well-written, ambitious books with something to say.

The book is so revoltingly bad I'm not even sure where to
start. Shameless reads as if it were written by Pat Robertson, Fred Phelps, and Rick Santorum conjuring up the vilest things they believe about gay men. There is no evidence of that, so my theory is that Mr. Burston is actually a very sensitive, talented soul who has written marvelous books only to have them be rejected as not commercial enough. Shameless, then, is his saying "If they want crap, I'll give them crap!"

The nominal plot involves Martin being dumped by his
loathsome boyfriend and Martin's ensuing search for "love" amongst the body obsessed, drugged out party boys in the London nightclub scene. Great place to look for love. I would call the characters two-dimensional, but that gives them considerably more depth than they actually have. No one in the clubs gives Martin the time of day until he loses weight, dresses better and starts consuming huge amounts of drugs. He also has lots of sex, but no one ever calls him the next day.

The dust jacket says Shameless is one part Sex and the City.
I'm not sure which part they mean as Sex and the City was witty,
moving, and well crafted. I suppose Shameless does have sex, but
it's actually boring and not any fun at all. Perhaps there is
another Sex and the City of which I haven't heard. One where Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte use and abuse each
other like the characters do in Shameless. In addition, what passes for wit in the book are observations such as "If John's theory was correct, then gay men aged at about the same rate as dogs." What a fresh observation that is.

I think what most upset me about the book is the idea that gay men are as shallow, vain, selfish, and repulsive as the men
in this book. One character eats his own vomit because he's afraid he's puked up some of his drugs and will miss his high. I'm not kidding. Another snorts toenail clippings thinking it's actually coke his roommate swiped from him. (This was neither funny nor believable.) In addition, a toilet bowl gets cracked in a way that I don't want to repeat, much less ever think about again. Worst of all, when one of Martin's "friends" has a drug overdose on a dance club floor, one friend walks away while the crowd of gay men dances on wishing the distraction would be swept away. Trust me, I haven't even begun to catalogue the list of ugliness that passes between these people who supposedly care about each other.

In case you're wondering, the book is not satire, not a
scathing critique of the underbelly of gay society. It's supposed to be, in the words of the New York Times Book reviewer, "...hootingly funny yet strangely tender first novel..." Yeah, about as tender as a gang rape in prison. If I were a young gay man and I read this novel, the first thing I would do would be to join one of those Christian conversion groups. At least living a life of denial and self-hatred as a straight person wouldn't be nearly as horrible as being the immoral sub-humans in this book. And if this is truly what we as gay men are like, heaven help us all.