Looking Back, Looking Forward: Serendipity on Friday
“If there’s a thesis, I can’t detect it—and that’s the remarkable, even heroic, thing about it. The author of two previous novels, McConnell is interested not in making broad claims but in telling stories about how and where masculinity expresses itself as murderous violence. Contra Christy Wampole, he writes, ‘Straight men, who really are socially powerful, have been accustomed to a veil of discretion when it comes to the truth about their private selves, their weaknesses, anatomy, fears, silliness.’ But theirs are stories too, and McConnell tells a number of them. Some you’ve heard: about the killing of Billy Jack Gaither, for instance, who was gay; or the famous Jenny Jones case, in which a gay man went on TV to confess an attraction to a male friend, who afterward killed him. This last tale actually constitutes part of the book’s introduction: McConnell hasn’t really told us the why before he starts in with the what.
So this is more of a meditation, shorter on analysis than it is on simple thoughtfulness. . . .”
The above from http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/spring-books-worley-david-mcconnell-desire-rage/Content?oid=9204773.
The evaluation of rhetoric/style directly echo comments that begin https://haroldlounge.com/2013/03/07/the-read-from-this-side-of-suite-711-15/#comment-11194.
(Added bonus: Christy Wampole from http://donsdesk.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/irony/ returns!)
The Harold Lounge 