Vulgarian Rhapsody

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A whirlwind tour of San Francisco’s fabled queer bohemia in the waning days of the 20th century, as the city’s budget bon vivants work to save their eccentric lifestyles in the face of tech gentrification by LAMBDA award finalist Alvin Orloff.

Harris, San Francisco’s most annoying gay barfly, doesn’t mean to be bitchy, passive aggressive, or insulting. But he’s so bedazzled by his own critical brilliance he feels morally obliged to share his scathing opinions with the world at any and every opportunity. This irritates no one more than his roommate, Maxine, an avant-garde transsexual cabaret singer. When she overhears him badmouthing her on the phone she flies into a rage and expels him show more from their apartment.

This crisis couldn’t come at a worse time. The year is 1999 and the “dot com” boom has rendered cheap housing nonexistent, and Harris, who works as a part-time telemarketer, is—as usual—low on funds. Will he be able to convince one of his eccentric, semi-dysfunctional friends with a rent-controlled apartment to let him move in?

Vulgarian Rhapsody immerses readers in a fading bohemia of queer dive bars, drag clubs, and countercultural cafes. The book’s narrator (a longtime frenemy of Harris who’s every bit as snarky and annoying as he is) tells the story with sadistic relish and an ironist’s eye for the absurd. Anyone feeling sickly from too many uplifting stories of personal empowerment, precious coming-of-age tales, or sugarcoated romances will find the perfect antidote in this hilariously acidic comedy of manners. A must-read for fans of Brontez Purnell, Philippe Besson, and Ryan O’Connell.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Have you ever wondered what would happen if Armistead Maupin had written Tales of the City in the 1990s, focused it on the (non-existent) lovechild of Truman Capote and Sylvia Miles, and done it when he was coming off a meth binge? Just me, then?

This is what would've happened...this bitter acerbic slacker story about a San Francisco as gone, as forever and irretrievably gone, as my New York is. So this is swingin' for my sweet spot, nostalgia plus perspective multiplied by anger at the heedless waste of it all.

I had to stop at three-and-a-half stars because, as I was reading bits aloud to Rob on a Zoom, he kept saying, "that's really obscure" and "why do you think that's funny, exactly?" So it's aimed at me, but the blast radius is quite small.

Three Rooms Press asks a piddling $9.99 for a Kindle edition. Go, fellow oldsters! Buy! show less

I knew when I started Vulgarian Rhapsody, by Alvin Orloff that it was going to be different. The back cover says “A whirlwind tour of San Francisco’s fabled queer Bohemia in the waning days of the 20th century”. I was interested in reading it because some decades earlier than that I would cross the Bay Bridge to wander around The City, to hang out in an exciting place, and maybe to bump into people I knew who lived that life there. Different times, what can I say.
The story follows Harris, an unsettled, unhappy, and unrealistic person who, in the end, never changes. He says he must get away because the people around him are monsters, but he will never leave and his friends are not the problem. Harris is his own problem. Orloff show more writes convincingly, capturing the personalities, the quirks, the voices, the concerns and delights, and the unique feel of that time and place. But more than anything else, he conveys a sense of end of times that permeates the whole story, through the person of Harris, who has not aged well and who only survives by leaching off of his friends.
As the lyrics to the Queen song go, “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?” The short answer is yes. The longer answer is, for Harris, that “Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth” will never happen. For me Vulgarian Rhapsody started out as great fun, but ended up a sad tale, indeed. "Carry on, carry on as if nothing really matters" is Harris' story. show less

Vulgarian Rhapsody offers a slice-of-life look at roommates Harris, a fortyish gay man who's never figured out what to do with his life beyond being (as the book says) a "Party Person", and Maxine, a fiftyish trans woman who still considers herself an "aspiring" singer and actress. It's also a window into the queer community of San Francisco in the late '90s, recently ravaged by AIDS and about to be further trampled by tech industry-driven gentrification.

The book is zippy and funny, with a touch of Austen pastiche to the narrative voice. It's firmly in the school of comedy where the point is to watch terrible and somewhat pathetic people be hoist by their own petards, but it's not without a certain wistful affection for its now-vanished show more milieu. It has no plot to speak of, and its sense of humor won't be for everybody, but it's an enjoyable afternoon's worth of reading for anyone who does enjoy watching self-absorbed people self-sabotage, especially if you also have an interest in recent LGBTQ history. show less

This was really a treat! Effervescent, witty, and very evocative of time and place, "Vulgarian Rhapsody" follows a loose network of queer bohemians in late 90s San Francisco. Orloff's voice is supremely confident as he expertly evokes the foibles and flaws of his characters, whose misanthropy and hang-ups ensure that the reader laughs at the absurdities of their misfortunes without losing a sense of affection and sympathy. I would have happily spent twice as long with this breezy novel.

“Vulgarian Rhapsody” follows the largely separate lives of two soon-to-be-ex roommates for a few days in the rapidly gentrifying San Francisco of 1999. Harris, an aging (although exactly how aging is open to interpretation) gay man, has an Ignatius J. Reilly-style disdain for all the “vulgarians” around him who fail to measure up to his rigid standards and who, in various ways, are the cause his life hasn’t been the resounding success he knows it should be. Barely able to tolerate the effort of holding down a job, he is living on the couch of Maxine; a trans-woman and aspiring chanteuse. Following a heating argument, Maxine evicts Harris, giving him only a few days to find new accommodations.

The plot is thin; the goal here is show more to visit the assortment of queer-SF types Harris and Maxine run into trying to get through the week. It’s never clear why Harris’s ‘friends’ put up with his constant animus, although Maxine’s flashbacks provide a hint of how addictive his support can be when he favors you. There is a heavy dose of the “bitter old queen” trope, and Harris is unable to get out of his own way and be nice when he desperately needs a new roommate. The various scene all have a real credibility to them, despite being a bit exaggerated in the way aesthetes like to live, while the vignette nature of the book leads to an ending that feels a bit abrupt. show less

Thank you, LibraryThing & Three Rooms Press for this delight of a book! Orloff brings us to a 1990s San Francisco familiar from the works of Michelle Tea, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, & William Vollmann but with a certain slant of blight all his own. Everything was a complete surprise to me, so I won’t give anything away, I’ll just say that the early Harris chapters made me laugh out loud. This book is also smart, which is why its humor is so good.

I need to take a look at everything Orloff’s written.

I’ve won a lot of Early Reviewer books (thank you, thank you!). This is one of the very best!

Received Vulgarian Rhapsody by Alvin Orloff through the Library Thing Early Reviewers programme.

The story revolves around a group of individuals living the life in 1990's San Francisco. The characters were engaging. The dialogue was witty and had me nodding my head and laughing out loud. Alvin Orloff captured the spirit of gay life...with all of its joy, misery, excitement and disappointments.

A wonderful book. Looking forward to reading other works from Alvin Orloff.