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Rating: 
Summary: A beauty that hasn't faded
Review: I came across this book at a friend's house, and once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. Not only is the story riveting, but for me it was also a time capsule. Melson came of age in the golden era of gay liberation in America, the late 70's, a time that many gay activists today are ambivalent about. On the one hand, for the first time in history, gays were coming together in masses to express their pride. Yet, at the same time, actual sex often remained anonymous and self-indulgent. Melon does a wonderful job of placing his readers in that era, and despite his narcissism and seemingly cold take on gay life and love, it is clear that he was an integral part of the community, and that he was, in fact, humbled by it. After finishing the book, I went to amazon.com to find out what other's had to say...What a shock! Everyone seems to hate it. They say it's not literary. So what! He wasn't a writer. He was someone with a unique story and the balls to share it. The only reason I can fathom for all the animosity towards Melson is that people are jealous. Melson was a self-described beauty and the life he lead shows how his pretty face opened doors for him, but also set him apart from the majority. It seems to me that being young and cute comes at a price. No matter how successful you are, people tend to attribute it to your looks, and they treat you like an alien, offering little trust and compassion. Hello? Just because your clothes don't fit right and you don't get whistled at by construction workers and men in suits doesn't make you more intelligent than a supermodel, it just means you're not a supermodel. On a rudimentary level there is a gene for attractiveness, a gene for intelligence, a gene for athleticism, and a gene for homosexuality. The cards are shuffled. It's a crapshoot. Some people just end up having it all. Unfortunately for Melson, having it all lead to his demise. He died of AIDS while in his mid-thirties. My only hope is that the future Melson imagined for his autobiography remained intact before he went, because he was a cool person, and deserved to have his dream to come true.
Rating: 
Summary: Unremarkable Story Using Others and Vanity
Review: I can't imagine a publisher actually being interested in this story. It is completely lacking in literary form. It simply runs as an historical time-line of one man's short life as a 'full-time queen.' Melson grew up in middle america as a fat little boy. He chronicles his metamorphisis from fat kid to the ideal 'gay buff boy.' ... I'm not so sure this is the typical gay male's story and Melson managed to carve out a pretty rich life (literally and figuartively) trading on his looks until he was struck down by the tragedy of AIDS. We've read this story with much more complexity, richness and depth in the works of Paul Monette and so many other excellent writers. Should have been given out as a diary to loved ones. I don't see it's entertainment, literary or historical value. Wasted time, wasted life!
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating and Sad
Review: James Melson's memoir provides an insider view of the legendary-to-some, shocking-to-others sex-drug-disco scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In contrast to the novels produced at the time, _Golden Boy _has a protagonist who exists by day as well as by night, and even tries to establish a career. The book provides insight into the little-understood phenomenon of sponsoring the young and pretty, even when they refuse to put out. The ugly duckling boy from Dubuque, Iowa becomes first a Minneapolis model and then is passed on to well-connected New Yorkers who help him become an investment banker, the prorotypical occupation of the greedy Reagan era. Didn't he almost have it all? Alas, the author died of AIDS before the book appears. The posthumous memoir comes framed by substantial analyses by Larry Mass and Arnie Kantrowitz that I find more interesting (and markedly better-written) than the narrative they frame.
Rating: 
Summary: Pallid documentation of "fast-lane" gay 1970s
Review: James Melson's memoir provides an insider view of the legendary-to-some, shocking-to-others sex-drug-disco scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In contrast to the novels produced at the time, _Golden Boy _has a protagonist who exists by day as well as by night, and even tries to establish a career. The book provides insight into the little-understood phenomenon of sponsoring the young and pretty, even when they refuse to put out. The ugly duckling boy from Dubuque, Iowa becomes first a Minneapolis model and then is passed on to well-connected New Yorkers who help him become an investment banker, the prorotypical occupation of the greedy Reagan era. Didn't he almost have it all? Alas, the author died of AIDS before the book appears. The posthumous memoir comes framed by substantial analyses by Larry Mass and Arnie Kantrowitz that I find more interesting (and markedly better-written) than the narrative they frame.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and Sad
Review: This is an intersting autobiography especially if you are interested in the 1970's party scene in NYC. The adventures he has & famous people he meets just by being good looking are astonishing. This is kind of a gay "Alice in Wonderland" with the young gay character seeing and experiencing all that a big city has to offer a cute young gay man. James is not a likable character in the book and he honestly doesn't try to be. Some of his observations are predjudiced, self loathing and narcissistic however they were his "truth" as he lived it. This story ends abruptly and feels unfinished. Partially because that is the truth when you die so young. However it is also because he really never accepts his faults or gains compassion for others. (despite one story depicting it) The foreward gives away too much but the afterword is essential to put Jame's story in perspective. CALIFORNIA SCREAMING is a much funnier and livlier book on this same topic - altho it is fiction. I would recommend this only if you are a big fan of autobiography or you want to see young gay glitterati in NYC during the 70's. (Studio 54 etc)
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