Rating: 
Summary: love it or hate it
Review: Almost the entire book is seen through the sensibility of BK Troop which is either wonderful or horrible depending on how much you enjoy BK's witty, erudite, bigoted point of view. I found BK to be marvelously entertaining so I loved the book and found BK's eventual personal transformation deeply moving.
Rating:
Summary: A good read
Review: B.K. Troop is a classic, comic anti-hero in a great literary tradition. John Kennedy Toole, Evelyn Waugh and Saki are just a few of the names that come to mind. Bitter, vindictive, scandalous, the Quentin Crisp like protagonist will stop at nothing in pursuit of his quarry. He provides the perfect astringent to a narrative that might otherwise become a rather turgid story of unrequited love. We feel his tragedy all the more sharply because we know that he is surely doomed from the first page of the book. It surprises me that so many of the reviewers of this novel found him unappealing but then, the wonderful cynicism of this character is always likely to prove disconcerting to those of a more earnest frame of mind. An easy prose style that is yet replete with literary allusions and references makes this a page turner with both a heart and a brain. More please.
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Summary: A Glorious Début of A Novel
Review: CHRISTOPHER is a bitterly beautiful, compassionate and surprising love story. The dear friend who gave a copy of this book to me insisted that although it was in the "gay fiction" section it was in fact suitable reading for people of any and all sexual persuasions. The twin voices of B.K. Troop (the principal narrator) and Chris Ireland (the object of Troop's titanic if unrequited obsession) form a harmonious soundtrack to the delicious inhumanity of nineteen-eighties Manhattan. Under the guise of frivolity, this at first seemingly harmless concoction of a book is in fact literary engineering of the most exquisitely advanced and intense variety. The powerful and direct narrative style is reminiscent of Thackeray, Oscar Wilde or Nabokov at their best, and all the while inobtrusively peppered with irresistible literary insights and allusions. CHRISTOPHER, a cruel but loving portrait of two diametrically different men romantically divided by a common hallway, offers a spectrum of insights into the male psyche, from the reveries of a delusional, lonely queen to the eponymous disenchanted, heterosexual idealist: arguably the two faces of modern America. This book represents a delicious, unrepentantly entertaining fiction and a crisp, resonant new literary voice that deserves to be heard over and over again. The final dénouement especially leaves me longing for more of Mr. Burnett's delectable prose.
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Summary: The infallible eye of experience?
Review: Christopher is a coming of age tale told by a narrator who has come of age and passed his peak. Through the cynical and dry eyes of BK Troop, Burnett gives the Wertherlike escapades of young Christopher a refreshing twist--the voice of experience. As Christopher embarks on his life, he experiences emotional ups and downs, rushes headlong into political activism, women, self-help groups, a novel...only to be disappointed time and time again as he forges ahead on the path to becoming a man. His hopes and adventures are painfully recognizeable for anyone who has been twenty-three (or is 23) and tried to make his or her life extraordinary. What makes the book so fantastic is not necessarily the painful or truthful rendering of Christopher's highs and lows, but seeing them through the narration of BK Troop, who sees disaster coming before Christopher does--predicts his triumphs and defeats and laughs kindly at the sweetness and tragedy of Christopher's plight. Just when the dynamic of narrator and subject is comfortably established--the reader laughing and rolling eyes with Troop over Christopher's sweet exploits--Burnett has another trick of his sleeve. Cynical, wizened Troop is changing. And while his initial love of Christopher was predatory, a new, deeper love is growing in him, inspired by the very innocence he mocks. Christopher is an intricate and convincing examination of the symbiotic relationship between innocence and experience. It is a heartfelt examination of what it means to be human. Burnett's prose is funny and insightful. Christopher is a perfect bedside table read--although you may find yourself staying up later than you meant to. I did.
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Summary: It's easy to love "Christopher"
Review: Christopher is a hopeful young writer in New York. A hopeful, blocked writer. Doomed perhaps, when he meets his would-be muse -- an aging queen by the name of B.K. Troop. We hear Christopher's plight unfold through Troop's voice; the most unreliable of sources. BK is at once wicked and funny; devilish and always utterly entertaining. His perceptions of reality are as vivid as they are erratic- thus we are constantly kept on our toes to decipher what is real and what is the imagined grandiosity of the aging Troop. We quickly love B.K. despite his foibles and we root for Christopher in his dramas, so familiar to all of us in our early 20's. With it's ring of absolute authenticity, and as B.K. Troop would readily aver, it's just so easy to truly love "Christopher".
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Summary: Riveting--finished in a single sitting
Review: From the first paragraph, Allison Burnett's first novel, Christopher, A Tale of Seduction, rivets us with its wonderful voice. The story keeps turning in delightfully unexpected (yet totally believable) ways, and the sense of this particular New York neighborhood in the 1980's is nicely developed and controlled. Many of the details and images have stayed with me, though several days have passed. I've now bought 3 copies, 2 to give as gifts, and I've e-mailed friends so they can order copies. You'll thank me for turning you on to this book. If you're like me, you'll be compelled to finish it in a single sitting, which is the highest compliment I could possibly give any book. What a joy to lose myself in the world and characters Allison Burnett created. Broadway Books/Random House, when can we expect his next novel?
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: I am in awe of this new writer. Allison Burnett's CHRISTOPHER is the best contemporary novel I've read in the past five years. It is witty, romantic, moving -- altogether brilliant. It is also very funny. CHRISTOPHER not only leaves you feeling changed -- as does all great literature -- but it also leaves you eagerly anticipating Burnett's second novel. In the meantime, one can only read CHRISTOPHER again and again.
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Summary: Why So Loved?
Review: I am sorry to say that this is one of the most worst novels I've read in some time. ... Overall the story is fair, but the execution of character and story development are sloppy and underdeveloped. Please add my voice of reason to your online reviews. This book is not worth investing in. Thanks.
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Summary: You can't tell an author by the cover
Review: I bought this book after reading a very funny essay at (...) by the author, who wrote about being "typecast" as a gay writer (he's not) as a direct result of the book's popularity. He was amused that, just because he does such an excellent job of communicating the endearing and decidedly queenly traits of narrator B.K. Troop, a majority of his audience assumed he must be gay.
The book should be judged by its literary merits, which I found to be considerable, not its characters' (or the author's) sexual preference. Other enthusiastically positive reviewers have spoken eloquently on its behalf, so I'll just second their accolades, and say that it was a refreshingly intelligent, entertaining, and amusing approach to the age-old conundrum of unrequited love.
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Summary: Cynicism and gay love in 1984¿s New York City
Review: I felt to sorry for the main protagonist of this novel as he's fallen in love with someone, who realistically, he will never be able to have! Yes, this is such a deliciously sinful tale, full of unlikable, yet fun and oddly appealing characters - they're people that you just love to hate. The tone and style is very reminiscent of Kate Christensen or Steven McCauley - stories that deal artists, writers, and people living on the fringes of society who are "just making do." Short, tightly plotted, with great character development, Burnett tells a tale of unrequited love, and the search for artistic satisfaction. Set in 1984, the narrator B.K. Troop is looking back and reflecting on his strange, obsessive and tender friendship with Christopher Ireland. Life and relationships are seen through both the duel narratives of Troop and Christopher, as Troop recounts Christopher's growth, his failed and frustrated artistic endeavors and his selfish dysfunctional relationship with his synthetic like mother. Troop, although full of his own insecurities - his fear of falling in love, his cynical view of the world, his disinterest in politics - acts as a kind of cipher and witness to Christopher's coming of age and his search for meaning in life. The novel opens hilariously, with a rather cynical view of George Orwell's 1984, and then we are plunged back into the real 1984 in New York, where Reagan economics ruled, AIDS was ravaging the gay community, and society was politically polarized between the left and the right. There are several quite funny scenes where Troop, smitten with love, gets involved in Gary Hart's election campaign; is dragged by Christopher to a new age exploitative workshop; and witnesses his crush on a married waitress. Structurally, the novel is really interesting, because all of a sudden the narrative veers off and recounts Christopher's escapades such as with his self-absorbed wife Mary, his encounters with his mother, Grace, and his trip to Provincetown where he bed's his old school friend's wife. As the story progresses we begin to feel sorry for poor Christopher as we realize that his artistic endeavors are an apparition, and that his struggles to rise above frustration and failure are perhaps a little fruitless. This is a fun, intelligent and wry, yet bittersweet first novel. Allison Burnett is a really talented writer with a wonderfully cynical sense of humor, and in the novel Christopher, he's really managed to capture the tortured essence of artistic self-discovery. This is a must read for anyone who loves twisted tales, and quirky comedies of manners. Michael
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