Massage

Rating:
Summary: Massage from the Masseur
Review: Henry Flesh's MASSAGE is quite a worthy read in that it does reflect the reality of clannish big-city gay lifestyles with all the harsh edges. I didn't feel like jumping out a window (as I did after reading Holleran's THE BEAUTY OF MEN or his GROUND ZERO) because Henry Flesh gives us the beautiful Randy to dream along with as he experiments with sex, drugs, and self-psychotherapy through personal writing. Just as reality is one of this novel's merits, the very same reality is unsettling to those of us who need to escape from the "sweetness" (one of Flesh's nicknames for AIDS) that is closing in us. Curiously refreshing was the subtle manipulation of Flesh's progression of character evolution. I found myself switching sides and opinions about the other characters just as Randy does and as we all do as our lives progress. Enjoy it with a Mona Lisa smile.

Rating:
Summary: Massage from the Masseur
Review: Henry Flesh's MASSAGE is quite a worthy read in that it does reflect the reality of clannish big-city gay lifestyles with all the harsh edges. I didn't feel like jumping out a window (as I did after reading Holleran's THE BEAUTY OF MEN or his GROUND ZERO) because Henry Flesh gives us the beautiful Randy to dream along with as he experiments with sex, drugs, and self-psychotherapy through personal writing. Just as reality is one of this novel's merits, the very same reality is unsettling to those of us who need to escape from the "sweetness" (one of Flesh's nicknames for AIDS) that is closing in us. Curiously refreshing was the subtle manipulation of Flesh's progression of character evolution. I found myself switching sides and opinions about the other characters just as Randy does and as we all do as our lives progress. Enjoy it with a Mona Lisa smile.

Rating:
Summary: Massage is icky-good fun!
Review: I started to review 'Michael', the new novella from 1999 Lambda Literary Award winner Henry Flesh, but I could only compare it unfavorably to the novel for which he won the award - the refreshingly brutal and extra-creepy 'Massage'. 'Michael' is, sadly, poorly realized and the illustrations sucked. So, I changed horses.

I reveled in the sordid pleasures of 'Massage', admiring especially its anti-feel-good attitude and unhappy ending. Despite a gravity almost automatically conferred on gay writing by the AIDS experience, there is a preponderance of gay fiction that's merely "uplifting" - smarmy stuff really not far removed from Gordon Merrick's jock-busting romances of the 1970's. Flesh's work is a welcome antidote that makes you feel like you've been up all night, chain-smoking and chewing the inside of your lip. Having AIDS or a horrifying childhood (the raw materials for so much gay writing) rarely makes you a better, more spiritually aware person. I'd say it more often makes you bitchy, confused, and depressed. So too are the characters that inhabit 'Massage'. There's no room here for plot synopsis, but be assured that barging selfishly around within its covers - and worthy of your love - are hustlers, 12-Steppers (the AA meetings had me howling), dirty old men, drug-blasted queens, and plenty of freaky sex. Flesh's writing is as black as your unfaithful lover's heart, but sensitive and true. His character's joys, like ours, are fleeting and compromised, their failings life-long.

Love and life are messy and unsafe. Henry Flesh won't let you forget that. Read Massage.

Rating:
Summary: A sharp, sexy portrayal of inner city "grunge" life
Review: Massage is an incisive, raw, edgy and very gritty novel. Flesh never compromises his characters actions or the sexual relations that exist between them. The novel is full of larger than life, colourful and controversial characters - gym boys, drag queens etc. all helping paint a startling picture of life in inner city Manhattan and also helping to present an incredibly compassionate portrait of the lower east side gay community.

Although at times the dialogue appears stiff and stilted, don't let this detract you from reading this novel. The issues raised here are what are important: Flesh raises the question of what constitutes socially deviant behaviour and the consequences of the casting off of ones sexual repression. Don't let the sexual explicitness put you off reading this novel either because the central character Randy takes us on an interesting journey. We witness his growth and are with him as he battles the interior demons of his past and comes to term with his situation in life.

Often funny and incredibly heart rendering, Massage is certainly not the best novel I've read about gay Manhattan and the individual's voyage of self discovery. However, it is certainly one of the most frank and honest accounts to be published recently.

Rating:
Summary: Buy and Read This Book!!!
Review: Take a trip into the wonderful world of Randy. Henry Flesh allows the reader to experience the life of Randy, a gay erotic masseur who is drawn to abusive men. The reader is introduced, in amazingly haunting detail, to Randy's lovers past and present. Even Randy's memories of the evil pedophile Mr.Hewitt is so interesting that one finds it hard to put the book down. Randy's client Graham Mason is a deliciously demonic and skillfull torturer. We see Randy in the worlds of his youth, drugged insanity, hanging with the drag queens, AIDS (described by Flesh as "the sweetness") and even (Surprise!) sobriety. I took this book everywhere I went until I had finished it. I felt as if I were experiencing Randy's life and living in New York City's East Village. "Massage" is extremely well written, Flesh has a way of making the most despicable characters some of your favorites and Randy is just plain loveable - I couldn't help wanting to just give him a hug.

Rating:
Summary: Chilling and brilliant
Review: This book gripped me from the start and twisted me all along the way. Yet, I think this is a good book if not a great one. It feels like a documentary of degradation. I found myself at times just not liking this book, just hating it. But then realizing that it was the not the book that bothered me but that the pain is so truly depicted that I couldn't bear to look at it. So, why read it? Because there are real people here brought to life as only fiction can.