Daniel M. Jaffe

https://iwriteinbooks.wordpress.com/2018/10/19/yeled-tov-daniel-m-jaffe/
Quick!

Someone find me the Venn Diagram of Queer, Coming of Age, Jewish, Mental Health, and Pleasing-cum-Rebellion.

Oh, hold on a minute.

I think I found something.

No, no, this is not my autobiography.

It is right here and it is Daniel M. Jaffe’s amazing new book, Yeled Tov.

1974 finds sixteen-year-old Jake Stien in a bit of a fix, pitting his faith roots against his heart. It’s a tale as old as time itself in that show more Jeff’s struggles follow what many have before him, navigating the apparently binary of being queer and being religious.

I have read so many books, stories, and interviews involving this heartbreaking internalized fight that I could tell it by heart, by now. With that said, Jaffe weaves his story in such a brilliant light, so expertly, that it could very well be the first time such a thing has surfaced. Jake’s internal struggle (often written and presented through vivid and imaginative fantasies) is one that can span gender, orientation, faith, and time period. Though so much has changed (especially in the queer community) over the last few decades, there is so much modern-day validity to the storyline.

The cast of characters between the covers of this book all but wandered off the pages and straight into my heart. Rarely are those in conflict with the protagonist written with so much heartwrenching empathy. From Jake, to his peers and teachers, to his family and faith community, the voices surrounding his journey ring true and complex.

This was my first book by Jaffe and I am totally hooked. If you haven’t read it, yet, I highly recommend it. show less

This book is far out of my real world experience. I am not a Jewish boy nor am I gay. But I read to go into worlds about which I don’t know. Generally that is something like Elizabethan England but I’ve been trying to stretch my reading experiences. This book most certainly did that.

Jake is a young man who just wants to be a yeled tov – a good boy. He has been brought up in a religious house and he wants very much to please his parents, in particular his father. As he heads into his show more senior year of high school his hormones start to kick in but he finds himself not attracted to girls but to boys. This conflicts with everything that he has been raised to believe and since it’s the ’70s it’s not exactly a time of love and acceptance for people in the LGBTQ community.

The story follows Jake’s struggles with his identity through his final year of high school through acceptance to his chosen college to a fateful decision. A lot of Jake’s story is written through his fantasies as he attempts to deal with his feelings while having no one to whom he can turn to talk to about what he considers his unnatural desires. He feels if anyone knows about him they will turn away in disgust – what he doesn’t understand is that the friends that care for him the most already suspect and don’t care. His self hate is his biggest obstacle to happiness.

Despite this being a very alien world to me I found this to be a compelling book. The pain and struggles of Jake are really the same struggles for anyone who cannot accept themselves as they are….. Much of the story is told through fantasies in Jake’s head – and there are sex scenes as he stumbles his way through the life he has been born into. He also has conversations with his God in head as he struggles to reconcile his religion with what he feels.

Mr. Hall really brought the world of the 70s to life and the characters are all memorable, Jake most of all. The book is semi autobiographical. show less

I think I need to start this with the table of content: Highland Sleeper by Jeff Mann, No Mincing Words by Rob Rosen, Elsewhen by ’Nathan Burgoine, Mount Olympus by Jeffrey Ricker, Reunion on the Rails by Hank Edwards, The Blue Train by Erastes, The Train Home by Rick R. Reed, Royal Service by Dale Chase, Resist Me, Please! By Daniel M. Jaffe, Engine of Repression by Gavin Atlas, One Night on the Twentieth Century by Jay Neal, Shadow Mapping by J.D. Barton, Geronimo’s Laughter by Joseph show more Baneth Allen, The Roundhouse Men by Dusty Taylor, The Last Train by William Holden. Why? Because aside for very few names I didn’t know about, this is a collection of la crème de la crème in Gay Fiction. All these authors are bestsellers on their own, and having them all together in one anthology is a treat that make me forget for a moment that anthologies are usually not my cup of tea. It’s also a compliment to the editor, Jerry L. Wheeler, because I think it hadn’t to be simple to put them all together, maintaining by the way the feeling of uniqueness of the collection, all the stories work together for the same target.

Like the majority of these anthologies, Riding the Rails falls into the Erotica category, but I was quite surprise to find out that indeed this is also a Romance collection; some of the stories in it are not even about sex ( see ’Nathan Burgoine’s one), and almost all of them are about love story with an happy ending. Sure there is a bittersweet aftertaste all along the anthology, something that, truth be told, I have always found when reading stories related to trains… there has to be some deep connection between the two things, or maybe the train itself is a metaphor for something you wish but cannot catch. In any case, aside for maybe one or two exceptions (Rick R. Reed and Jay Neal probably), the romance reader will have plenty of happily ever after to enjoy, some of them a little kinky (Jeff Mann), some of them sweet (’Nathan Burgoine) and some of them funny (Daniel M. Jaffe)… to everyone their own.

A collective compliment to all authors go for the high quality of the stories, more little novel than short stories; different in genre, from historical, to sci-fi, to steampunk, but all of them way more than the average you usually are expecting to find in a collection; here the authors sent their best production, not what they had laying around in a forgotten folder.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1602825866/?tag=elimyrevandra-20 show less

Short stories, Jewish.