book review
Jonathan Kemp raves about Jeremy Atherton Lin’s ‘pitch-perfect” GAY BAR
“Does gay still have a place?” asks the back cover blurb, and whilst Atherton-Lin’s riveting and joyous book may not provide anything approaching a definitive answer, it’ll make you want to find a place, even make you nostalgic for a place whether real or imagined. Appearing at the tail-end of a year-long lockdown,…
Diary of a Film : Niven Govinden reviewed by Jonathan Kemp
At the heart of Niven Govinden’s short novel is the romantic off-screen love affair between two actors, the leading men in the narrator’s latest film. The narrator, known only as Maestro, originally from some East European country and now in his mid-fifties, is a successful film director attending a film festival in Italy for the…
Alone : Thomas Moore reviewed by Jonathan Kemp
“The door closes. He’s gone. I’m alone.” Moore’s narrator feels he’s hard-wired for abandonment, allergic to reciprocated love, only happy when he’s being rejected. Loneliness is the one constant in his life, the one companion that never leaves. “Loneliness can be the greatest gift”, he says. The fragmented nature of the text mirrors the…
Queer Brit comic Tom Allen : No Shame
Young people need to come out in their own good time – no matter how many well-meaning people are willing you on to throw off those straight shackles and wrap yourself in the feather boa of gay pride! Tom Allen is a good example of this and as we skip lightly through his memoir, we…
