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There is much in this book that is absorbing, to such an extent that I didn’t want it to end. Theirs is also much that is true to ‘real life’, such as those young men who rely on an Aunt Constance figure for financial support; Rupert, who reminds me of someone I know, who likes the finer things in life, who thinks that politics is beneath artists, who doesn’t like controversy but loves his antiques. Like my friend, he turns up trumps at the end; Lady Abernathy who thought that Hitler had some good ideas, who disliked foreigners and anything modern and believed that the media was run by Jews, the existence of ‘pretty police’ who entrap gay men in toilets; Edward, the working class 19 year old who marvels at the number of books in Brian’s bedsit and whose quaint reticence captures the mood of the times.

Brian ‘fagged’ for Nigel at public school. I feel for his sense of insecurity when Nigel says that he has no opinions of his own but backtracks if he states an opinion which is unpopular. Like me, he always thinks of a clever retort after a conversation has finished. His feeling about his homosexuality is probably faithful to that time of oppression: he thinks it’s a passing phase because he is not effeminate, is full of self-loathing, thinks that homosexual ‘acts’ are a waste of sperm (remember Monty Python’s song ‘Every sperm is sacred’?) and is fearful for his future as a sad old queen held in contempt by the young. He seems to agree with Tim, who says that with men it is only sex, whereas with women it is love and that homosexuality corrupts mentality. Of cottaging and cruising, he has a slightly more mature thought about our holistic nature, that what we do with our bodies does effect our ‘souls’: “Who touches the body, however feelingly, also touches the soul.” Books of that period never had happy endings where homosexuality is concerned: ‘You know it will end in tears.’ Instead, we are left wit the world-weary observation that ‘Love makes us young, but the world makes us old.’

He has some sense of humour: when asked if he is a ‘card-carrying member of the Communist party’ he responds that he can’t be because he always loses cards. He has some obsession with the underground map that smoothes out differences – I reckon there’s an element of symbolism here but would need to read the book again to ascertain its meaning.

The Communists in the book, true to their doctrine, see homosexuality as decadent and individuals as dispensable to the cause

I am less convinced by Lucy. Although she knows about cheeses, at a time when the English tended to know only Cheddar, because she has French friend  and her conversation is superficial, to impress but who shows no interest in others’ lives despite asking them, I cannot believe her directly asking Brian about ‘buggering’.  Nor Phillipa who gets undressed in front of Brian. Pre-feminism, I can’t imagine women behaving like that. And did Edward really have a sister called Pearlene? We are told that about 100 year old carp – their life span is 60-70 at the most. Christmas decorations are described as being modest in the poorer districts. If that were true, it’s a far cry from the gaudy displays that abound on council estates in our time.

Some in our group thought that the book was enjoyable even though the narrator becomes less pleasant as time goes on and that it was realistic in its emotional context but others thought that it was a rosy picture of working class life and that the author hadn’t done his research properly: bedsits didn’t have en suite, there would only be one (if at all) telephone in a house, landladies would be very unlikely to allow you to have a member of the opposite sex stay over, there’d be no double bed and what Brit. ate curry back in 1936? Though the author is American, he should have his characters speak the Queens English, so we are never ‘obligated’ but ‘obliged’.

That our group had many differing opinions shows that the book was evocative and provocative, not mere ‘rubbish.’ However, one of our members said that if we did any more books by this author, he wouldn’t come. Like Brian, who always thought of a witty reply after the event, I suppose you have to ‘take it or Leavitt’

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Everyone in our book group enjoyed this powerful two-hander play which keeps up the suspense right the way through. A working-class mother helps a teenage boy come to terms with his guilt in way reminiscent of psychodrama. In the tour de force at the end, describing horrific violence, one can almost taste and smell the scene. Two people’s lives are ruined by opprobrium but the chrysalis to butterfly and wings is a powerful image of potential new life after tragedy.

I completely understand the fear that led the mother to hide all evidence of her son’s lifestyle by taking some of his stuff to distant litter bins to avoid her neighbour’s discovering it. I wonder, though, whether most people would you have let a complete, unkempt stranger into their house. I was amused by the doctor telling her to smoke when pregnant to keep her calm: a sign of how things have changed. (Though some in our group wondered if prejudice was so rampant at this time.)

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This play reminds me of the sort of  ‘theatre of the absurd’ which we did in the 6^th form, in the late 1960s, with our trendy drama teacher. It comes from the time of travelling theatre workshops visiting schools with anti-racist and gay liberation agendas. It is like a hilariously funny farce with its cross-dressing and some of us would love see it performed or, at least, see if it is on Youtube.  One member said that if had seen it in 1979 it would have changed his life.

The first act, set in Victorian Africa, shows how the colonials regarded the natives as primitive, herdsmen would gladly chop off others’ heads and wear them round their waists and how some natives knew their place, were ‘white’ in their souls though black of skin.

Friendship between men is seen as better and that of a husband to a wife, who is there for reproductive purposes but ‘there is something dark about women….irrational, inconsistent, lustful; treacherous.’

 One woman’s advice to a soon to be bride, who knows nothing about sex, is to just keep still. You are not getting married to enjoy yourself

 Homosexuality is seen as a ‘revolting perversion’ which led to the fall of Rome and is more contagious than diphtheria. It is especially important not to do it with natives since it would be a betrayal of the Queen.

The second act is a hundred years later, though I don’t understand why the characters are only twenty-five years older. Attitudes to sexuality are supposed to be liberated, there is mention of The Hite Report but there is still a feeling of oppression, with some male characters wearing dresses. Maybe attitudes don’t change as much as we think they do.

Although the play is well put together, the first act is more believable that the second. The second act is more disturbing than the first.  Its people claim to be liberated but are actually quite dysfunctional.

One member felt that it was cartoonish, a bad attempt at a Monty Python sketch.  The characters, wheeled out as stereotypes, are mannequins, upon which we can project. This view was challenged by one who said that they were more akin to archetypes or emblems.

The person who chose the book, who was unable to attend the discussion owing to illness, sent these notes:

Structurally v innovative with its move forward 100 years between acts 1 and 2 while only aging the characters by 25 years. (Typically bold theatrical manoeuvre by CC.)

Relationship between Edward and Gerry nicely problematic:  how does one find a basis for a gay relationship when there are no rules other than those established by a heterosexist history? It’s a problem also articulated in Gay Sweatshop’s Mister X of 1975.

Similarly problematic is the character of Martin, the failed New Man, a figure whom one initially dislikes but who then comes across with considerable pathos..

The play has been condemned as portraying sexual liberation as a kind of social panacea. Personally, I disagree with this criticism. I think CC provides us with Act 1 – the problem then, and Act 2 – the problem now, and I think this is done in an interesting and enlightening way. Be that as it may, the play is a milestone in the development of gay and feminist awareness.

Difficult to stage, however.  I have seen, I think, five different productions between 1980 and 2008.  Of those, only one – at the Almeida in 2008 – was really successful.

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Having been enthralled by his first book and less keen on his second, I found that this third book returns to the interesting world of the first, with its missing people, alcohol and drug problems, prison work and storms.

There are the same evocative phrases, e.g. ‘the clouds low and heavy, as though clogged with pearls’; ‘wetly thrapping mop.

There is a moving account of a mother’s death from cancer, reflecting the author’s own experience.

I liked the description of hymns as ‘strange songs with strange melodies’.

I am wondering what revelation will accompany the author’s next book.

(We have not discussed this in the group but it was a ‘spin off’ from one of our meetings and this review is in a personal capacity.)

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Having greatly enjoyed Mysterious Skin, I found this book disappointing. The last few pages are engrossing but the earlier parts of the book are confusing and I wonder how many readers persevere to the end.

As in his other work, Heim’s descriptions are graphic: you can almost taste and smell the scenes. Some are onomatopoeic, e.g. ‘the wipers squeak their rubbery swath, stamping leaves and June bugs further into the flotsam at the windshield’s bottom’

In common with his previous book are disappearings, thunder storms where something awful happens, prostitution and sexual abuse. Additionally, we get a teenager siphoning off a love-object’s urine from a toilet with a test tube and drinking it – talk about taking the piss. There is also a scene of necrophilia which I found disturbing and sad by turns.

It is a tale about revenge by people who don’t fit in. But the revenge goes too far.

(We have not discussed this in the group but it was a ‘spin off’ from one of our meetings and this review is in a personal capacity.)

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Echoing the phrase `You can take the Jew out of the ghetto but you cannot take the ghetto out of the Jew, the writer asserts, `You can take the boy away from the Gypsies, but you can’t take the Gypsy out of the boy.’ and points out that Gypsy, like Jewish, culture was nearly wiped out in the Holocaust.

This is a thoroughly engaging description of a boy growing up alienated from his culture. One assumes that it is a true story though it deals in stereotypes: the distant, violent father who despairs of his gay son, the over-protective mother who talks of `special, my little boy’, the child abuser at the heart of the family who believes that his victims enjoy what he does to them and the hypocrisy of the lads who get as much sex as they can with `Gorgias’ but who expect their Gypsy brides to be virgins until marriage.

I am no prude but I was shocked how sexual swear words were commonplace yet sex itself was a taboo subject.

I had always thought that Gypsies were quite devout yet this family are non-religious yet the father cynically displays a fish badge on his van so that the elderly, for whom he does various jobs badly and then overcharges them, will think he is honest. In an odd take on family values, he is happy to fleece them for money because he has a family to feed and they come first.

I am looking forward to reading the sequel when it comes out in paperback.

(We have not discussed this in the group but it was a ‘spin off’ from one of our meetings and this review is in a personal capacity.)

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In the anonymity of a large city, people can shape their identities without much reference to others, apart from the constraints of the law. In this book, the lives of three London men across three generations are plaited together. They have lots in common despite their very different circumstances. Unbeknown to each other, what happens when their separate paths cross influences their habits and behaviour for the rest of their lives.

There is the usual defence of prostitution – that we all pay for sex in some way or another: that it’s a challenge to capitalism.

Some parts are implausible, e.g. a talent scout would not need the phone number of one the young hopefuls because he would already have it.

I doubt whether a semi-literate working-class young man from the late 19^th Century would use words like ‘resilience’ nor that he could allude to literary classics, though I did enjoy the pun in his phrase ‘this septic isle.’

I’m not sure what to make of the phrase, ‘Your hair smelt atomic’. Indeed, some members of the group thought the author’s use of language was ‘clunky’, many phrases emotive and his style repetitive. I am also unconvinced by one character’s writing, from prison, to a love who betrayed him in a pale imitation of Oscar Wilde’s de profundis.

Despite these slight misgivings, I found the lure of this book such that I couldn’t wait to see what would happen next and I had to ration myself to so many pages per day. I look forward to the author’s next book which is due out later this month.

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I have now read this book three times: once because I have read the author’s other stuff and then as a convenor of two different book groups.

I wonder whether the bishop is partly modelled on Walter Hussey, who commissioned outstanding modern art and music for St. Matthew’s Northampton and later, when he was dean, at Chichester Cathedral.

There are some interesting theological issues, made simply by being part of a narrative rather than in a text book, for people to get their heads around:  is art sacramental? Do Christians take seriously ‘the word made flesh?’ (This has all been fought out, literally, in the past, between the iconoclasts and the iconodules.) Who created Hell – God, or a god made in humanity’s own image? How can people have already been in Hell? Does Hell diminish God’s love? Liberals don’t like the idea of God being vengeful but should there be some final justice? As myth, is Genesis harmful in placing humanity at the pinnacle of creation? Whatever happens is God’s will?

There is good food for thought about the presenting issue that is rending the Anglican Communion asunder: the ‘issue’ of human sexuality, which is a phrase to obscure the fact that the only issue is homosexuality and that this is about people, not merely an ‘issue’. The novel earths this issue in flesh and blood people whose lives are deeply affected by such a debate. Does God punish people by AIDS? Should gays seek to change their orientation? Should gay marriage be allowed or is marriage ‘a reactionary and oppressive institution?’ Was Jesus less than fully human if he didn’t have a sex life?

For those unaccustomed to inter faith dialogue, there are some thought-provoking insights into Islam and Judaism: Is the Qur’an better, with Adam made from the dust of many lands? Is Judaism, as seen by the popular mind, an ‘escape into a world of “thou shalt nots”’? Or is the Jewish attitude towards the Torah one in which people can find’ freedom in a world of constraints? Does the Hebrew alphabet have radiance? Does the study of ‘comparative religion’ lead to the loss of conviction? Do Eastern religions involve more spirituality than ‘Western’ religions? Are the Bible and Qur’an man-made rules? Regardless of the official teaching of religious leaders, what do adherents realty believe? How widespread among Jews (and Christians) is belief in reincarnation? What is the right attitude towards Holy Writ, given that both Jews and Christians have always held that there are different levels of interpretation? ‘We debate laws rather than them falling out of the sky. The law is an absolute good?

Some people come to God through the heads, others through the heart. What implications does this have for religion?

Fundamentalism is portrayed well, though I think the author overdoes it in the case of the Church of England. As one of the characters says, the job of the C. of E. is ‘to constrain emotion not to ferment it’ (Alpha Course take note). After all, how common are ‘6 dayers’? (This is not America, yet.) Is fundamentalism increasing? What is the difference between ‘taking faith seriously’ and ‘not taking it simplistically?’

The implications for belief as played out in ethical decision-making are displayed with emotion and intellect: What sort of God would be offended at Edwin’s wish to be smothered with pillow? Might not the commandment to honour father and mother be fulfilled by honouring a father’s wishes for euthanasia? The faith of some people leads them to serve in the armed forces. The faith of others leads them to oppose war. Is one more true to faith than the other? Are newspapers a modern form of Inquisition/Confessional and public penance?

However, both groups wondered whether the author was trying to tick boxes regarding topics likely to interest readers: the role of women, fundamentalism, pro-life/pro-choice, sexual orientation, asylum seekers.

Some thought that the characters were cartoon-like, apart from Rafiq, who seems to be true to himself but whose character is never developed. Iris Murdoch dealt with these sorts of issues better. Some thought that the style was too ‘flowery’ and remarked on the sheer implausibility of several of the episodes, for example that only two men would be sharing cells in a category B prison. Many thought that there was an imbalance in the portrayal of Muslims and Jews: that Muslims came across as barbaric whereas that Jews were treated uncritically by comparison.

Many enjoyed the first section but got bogged down after that. ‘It started well, with a man stripping off.! ‘I’m glad I read it but I wouldn’t read any more of his books.’

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Scott Heim portrays slowly recovering memory of trauma by fracturing it among the different characters, particularly the geek and the streetwise kid who later becomes a rent boy who said, ‘Hollywood would never make a movie about us.’ – which of course, they did. His parents return home at 3am and his mother saves cocktail umbrellas. One psychotherapist has suggested that the way the story unfolds is fairly typical of how people deal with traumatic memories, though our own psychotherapist member argues that every one is different in the way that they process information and family secrets.

The subject matter is such that many people would find this book harrowing but I found it, if not ‘entertaining’ absorbing. I did, however, find some Americanisms annoying, e.g. ‘crawl space’ and ‘to touch it (Neil’s hair) would be like touching corduroy’

One of our members read the whole book in one sitting because it was so engaging, another said that it was ‘beautiful and well-crafted.’ One member pointed out that the ‘moral landscape’ of this book mirrors the flat physical landscape of Kansas, where the story is set.

I shall never see folk who believe in UFOs or in devils in quite the same way again. What awful experience have they undergone that makes them believe so irrationally? Is abduction by aliens, one member asked, really to do with the abduction of memories?

The author avoids a ‘victims’ and ‘monsters’ scenario: the paedophile coach is portrayed as an immature adult and there is a telling juxtaposition, at the end, as the innocence of the Christmas carol ‘Silent night…….holy infant tender and mild’ sung outside contrasts with the recollection of innocence violated and stolen inside. One of the children was not completely innocent: ‘Half of me knew if wasn’t right, the other half wanted it to happen.’

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