John Butler (4)

Young Evan along with his friend Milo leave Dublin for San Fransisco, it's 1994 and the Internet is just beginning into take off, and Evan just might become a part of it. But his friend Milo opts out and takes to the woods leaving him on his own, and Evan can't keep taking advantage of friends' hospitably, he needs to find work to support himself, find an appartment of his own.

When by chance he meets Sam Couples, who runs the rapidly expanding Internet company ForwardSlash, his fortunes seem show more set to change. A new job and along with it a new life seem to beckon. But Evan seems to be infatuated with Sam, whose beguiling come hither smile he hope he is not miss-reading, stirring up feelings that Evan is not quite sure how to handle. The situation is not helped following a disastrous intimate encounter initiated by Róisín, Milo's girlfriend who appears on the scene, confusing the virgin Evan even more. Thoughts of acting on his feelings for the much older Sam start to occupy his mind until he eventually takes the initiative - the results lead him to his ultimate decision about San Francisco.

The Tenderloin is quite simply beautifully written, reading it is an absolute pleasure simply for the flow of words and the attention to detail. But that is not to say that I don't have a problem with it, and the problem is that quite often I had difficulty following the thread of the story. Evan's narrative jumps about in time and place, and it is often not clear how things fit together. That quotation marks are not used for the dialogue, and that the speech is invariable unassigned is another issue (at least it is this way on the proof copy I read).

Despite the problems I did enjoy the book, Evan is an appealing character who engenders our sympathy, or maybe for many of us our empathy, all the more so because of his shortcomings. This together with the poetic writing and touches of humour make this a worthy read.

apart from the occasional contact with Róisín, show less

This book is simply terrible, the writing is poor, there is no description about the characters, what they see, what they feel. It reads like a newspaper article or some sort of wacky lecture. The voice is very distant from the actions. The author is often patronizing and clinical in his descriptions, which really doesn't make for good erotica.

A veritable crock of shite. A book to be avoided.