James Robert Baker (1946–1997)

I love this book: it's one of those which I ration reading - I acquired it in 1993 and read it once every six years or so. I was fortunate to get it on a whim at a CNA sale for R5.99 but the amount of pleasure I have derived from it is countless.

Basically the story of Shark Traeger and his obsession with Kathy Petro the action is presented as a series of interviews in which the same scene is described by various people with hilarious differences. Set primarily in the 60s and 70s, it is a show more twisted, black pastiche of a fictional biography: Shark is a Boy Wonder, a young and notorious producer who alternatively alienated and seduced Hollywood and its major players.

The constant in his life is his sick and obsessive love for Kathy, the 'girl next door' - well, several suburbs across town and on the other side of the tracks but someone he fell in love with at an early age and grew up with - and how it shaped his life and, ultimately, led to his destruction and her mutilation.

One of those delightful books which reveal more with every reading and where there are no heroes because most of the characters are pretty ignoble, this is a wonderful treatment of the powerful and power-hungry film industry and an indictment of the ludicrous Hollywood scene.

If you enjoyed An Oral History of World War Z, you wil adore Boy Wonder! show less

one of the great early "rage-period" AIDS books, brilliant in its fierce anti-religiousity and oppositon to every other institution of American life these guys perceived as killing them--and a sweet love story at that, don't slap me folks, part of you just wishes to see them settle down, be happy, and have lots of hot, angry/tender sex.

This is kind of a schizophrenic book. I tried to enjoy it for the romance between two ex-lovers, a filmmaker and a rock musician, who are thrown together and, over the course of one eventful night in L.A., must come to terms with their lingering feelings for one another. Even though, for me, the fate of this love affair was the most engaging aspect of the book, it's obvious that the late author, James Robert Baker, had another agenda in mind. This very black comedy/satire is primarily show more concerned with communicating the level of rage felt by the gay community against the right wing conservative powers-that-be during the height of the AIDS crisis in the early nineties. Set against, and certainly finding parallels in, post-riot Los Angeles, the story follows the eponymous ex-lovers as they traverse the city looking for one of Pete's fellow AA members who has fallen off the wagon...hard.

Along the way they meet a recovering alcoholic movie star, a reactionary Republican congressman, a pair of feuding, mismatched lesbian lovers, an AIDS sufferer newly converted to Christianity and ready to renounce his "sinful" ways and, most significantly, a band of artists-cum-terrorists plotting to bomb the La Jolla church attended by a popular Republican ex-President.

I very much enjoyed this book on one level because, as with all my favourite LGBT books, the two leads aren't mincing stereotypes. Both are attractive, complicated, unique individuals. Plus, as a rock music and film lover, the glimpses into their respective careers was definitely cool. And, with the exception of a few lengthy, didactic speeches, the copious dialogue is convincingly written.

On the downside, I found most of the secondary and minor characters (although not necessarily poorly drawn or wooden) were not fully realized individuals, but merely props used to justify the author's anger against particular societal ills. I was also majorly turned off by the violence. Although most of the violence doesn't actually happen on the page, it's still omnipresent - in the bitter, angry lyrics of Pete's songs, in the deliberately offensive, provocative artwork of the radical queer terrorists (who also orchestrate a wholesale massacre on a conference of conservative bigwigs that takes place sometime shortly after the book's denouement) and in the elaborate gore-filled revenge fantasies shared by the two leads as they drive through bombed out L.A. While I certainly agree with the book's politics, most of this stuff, played for laughs, struck me as nothing more than impotent bombast.

My recommendation - read TIM AND PETE for the love story. If you're anything like me, you can stop in the middle of Chapter Ten and have your happy ending without the huge side order of implied and impending violence. show less

Trashy, tasteless, hilarious. The perfect cult novel