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22+ Works 183 Members 4 Reviews

About the Author

David Watmough is the author of a cycle of fiction that features gay "everyman" Davey Bryant

Works by David Watmough

Associated Works

On the Line: New Gay Fiction (1981) — Contributor — 82 copies
His: Brilliant New Fiction by Gay Writers (1995) — Contributor — 79 copies
HisĀ³: Brilliant New Fiction by Gay Writers (1999) — Contributor — 70 copies
HisĀ²: Brilliant New Fiction by Gay Writers (1997) — Contributor — 63 copies
Queeries: An Anthology of Gay Male Prose (1993) — Contributor — 41 copies
Cornish Short Stories (1976) — Contributor — 21 copies

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A classical collection of shorts written in an easy to read prose.

You can find this book the internet archive website. https://archive.org/details/huntingwithdiana0000watm/mode/1up
 
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Connorz | Jan 4, 2023 |
Modestly interesting literary memoir by a gay Canadian novelist, arranged in the form of reminiscences of far more famous people that he has encountered. This creates an inevitable feeling of piggybacking on the celebrity of others, and the gossipy tone only reinforces that. But if you want to know about W.H. Auden's penis size, you've come to the right place.
 
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PatrickMurtha | Jul 7, 2016 |
For the most part this is your typical "death in the family = return to one's roots" kind of introspective study. Problem is the book isn't all that introspective. I found Davey to be a rather crotchety septuagenarian and I had troubles coming to terms with a character that on one hand was enjoying manipulating situations while at the same time weakly finding himself subject to some unusual time shifts of memory. It also didn't help when Davey would come across as a petulant school boy when the facts being discovered - remember, there is a family mystery of sorts to be uncovered here - didn't meet with his understanding of the situation. From a settings perspective, Watmough does a good job conveying the dichotomy of a Cornwall that has never changed in hundreds of years with the Cornwall that is unrecognizable to its returning son. The ending left me unsatisfied.... pieces were still not adding up in a clean manner, but like life, maybe it isn't supposed to add up. Some things tend to remain a mystery, no matter how hard we try to uncover the truth.

Watmough has a solid biography as a writer in Canada for five decades with 20 books to his credit. He was even the first president of the Federation of B.C. Writers. Having grown up mainly in Cornwall, the setting for this story - and the trip home Davey makes after decades of living on Canada's west coast - has a hint of autobiography to it, even though Watmough clearly states in his author's statement at the end of the book that he did not conceive of this book as any kind of swan song. He admits that this novel was written to address some unfinished business and approached it with no preconceived notions... he just let the story write itself. I will probably try and track down a couple of the first Davey Bryant books, as it was probably wrong of me to start with the 'last book', so take this review with the grain of salt that there is probably a lot more to this story that might make sense if all the books in the series have been read first.
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lkernagh | Oct 2, 2013 |
I love to read any books about the Vancouver area before Expo 86, because I used to visit B. C. as a kid, and remember the "good old days" before over-the-top expansion and ridiculous property prices. Going back even further, my Grandfather moved from frigid Edmonton to Kelowna B. C. in the 1950s. He certainly knew a good thing when he saw it. Consequently, I have always seen B. C., whichever part of it you might name, as a kind of Arcadia. And this novel takes place in Arcadia at a time before it was overrun with new hordes of tourists and property developers. Please read this if you have a chance.… (more)
 
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libraryhermit | Jul 10, 2010 |

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Works
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Rating
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ISBNs
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