Whistling in the Dark
Tamara Allen
Publisher: Lethe Press
ISBN-10 1590210492
ISBN-13 978-1590210499
see publisher’s website for buy links lethepressbooks.com
Available in print & electronic
I’m a sucker for any book about music and musicians, and a sucker for a well-written book about gay men, and a sucker for anything in the era 1890-1930. And Whistling in the Dark gave me all three. Tamara Allen made a convincing New York on the cusp of Prohibition, and has created characters the reader comes to know and care about.
Jack Bailey is cynical, unapologetically homosexual, smart-assed, a little bit flamboyant at times, quick-tempered, prone to drinking and gambling and borrowing money from questionable sources. And beneath the bluster and the Attitude, he has been wounded psychologically by double tragedies: service in France in WWI and the influenza death of his beloved parents before he returns home. If the term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder had been invented then, it would certainly apply to Jack. Jack isn’t a musician, except in a ham-handed sort of way, but he believes with his whole heart in the future of technology, in his case in the magic of wire and tubes called radio. He is determined to keep his parents’ business going, a mom-and-pop store of oddities and imports, (including a live crocodile named Woodrow) but has no head for business. What he has a head for is getting into trouble with the law, loan sharks, and potential bootleggers.
Sutton Albright is also a young veteran damaged by life. He had it all: good looks, wealth, adoring and indulgent parents and he grew up in the Midwest, far from the corruption of the Big City. A gifted concert pianist with a brilliant future, a war injury took away. He lights in New York, rootless, futureless, unable to go home. On first returning home he enrolled in a university only to become involved with a male teacher and finding himself expelled. He has no way of explaining that to his parents, no way of explaining that he is a “pervert.” (The word “gay” has not, at this time, gained common usage in that context.
Sutton is mistakenly caught up in a police sweep of a public park and jailed over night. There he first meets Jack. Friendship eventually becomes more, and that, plus Jack’s devotion to developing radio and Suttons’ hesitant resumption of playing the piano, combine to make this a compelling story. Rather than go further with a plot synopsis (I’m awful at them), let me just tell that you will enjoy this book if you enjoy stories of “opposites attracted” to each other. Here are two damaged young men who find each other, sometimes irritated and a little quarrelsome, sometimes tender and loving. Eventually comes the time when Jack has to face an unhappy choice that could lead to a new life for Sutton.
The supporting characters are very well done, individualistic without being overpowering, and most of them are Jack’s friends, eventually becoming Sutton’s friends as well. I especially liked Ox, who was big, and shy, and often mistaken for being slow. I felt there might be just the tiniest bit of stereotyping in some of Jack’s gay club friends; they reminded me a little of the “bitchy queens” in the film “The Boys In the Band.” But the characters in Whistling in the Dark aren’t as annoying.
It’s an outstanding debut novel and I’m sure Allen has many more just waiting to be written. Highly recommended.
ruthsims
April 6, 2009 at 6:21 am |
Hello, Ruth! Thank you for the warm and lovely review. I’m so glad that you enjoyed the book. And I think you are great at writing a plot synopsis. I think you’ve given everyone a good feel for what the story is like. Thank you.
April 8, 2009 at 2:49 am |
Ruth,
I whole-heartedly agree with your recommendation. I think it is a truly remarkable first novel.
Though I really didn’t find Theo and his friends to be stereotypical in the least. They struck me as completely realistic of the Quentin Crisp type queens that existed in the gay underground of that era. I really enjoyed Theo’s flamboyant wit.
April 8, 2009 at 4:58 am |
Dear Mark (*slap, slap*)don’t you know (*slap)that you’re supposed to always agree with me!? (*slap)because I’m never, ever, wrong?
Theo and his friends didn’t really bother me all that much and I should probably have left out the reference because it gives the impression more importance than it actually had. Anyway, it was the movie that really annoyed me. I’ve always rather admired Quentin Crisp and have two of his books. It took guts to live the way he did.
“Whistling in the Dark” is a fine, fine read and I hope more people discover it. Wouldn’t it be a good movie? Leonardo DiCaprio (is that spelled right?) would be a perfect Jack and I’m not even a big fan of Leonardo.
April 8, 2009 at 6:00 am |
Ruth, my face is smarting from all those slaps. You know I wish I were Steven Speilberg’s maid, (or butler?) I’d accidently leave copies lying around his house.
Leo’s a good choice for Jack. Who would you cast as Sutton?
April 10, 2009 at 11:02 pm |
This is the first time I’ve visited your blog. You have some wonderful reviews!
April 16, 2009 at 4:54 am |
Leo DiCaprio has never been one of my favorite actors but I’ll admit he’d probably be a convincing Jack. In my head, Jack was more a young Robert Downey, Jr. type. And thank you, Mark, but I think Spielberg would be far more drawn by a sprawling old west story.
Send him a copy of your book!
Btw, Ruth, that is a really nice review of The Phoenix by Book Utopia. She nailed exactly what I liked about it so much.
August 31, 2009 at 4:49 am |
Am rather tempted to get this one. It sounds very cool.
August 31, 2009 at 10:39 pm |
Hi, Sarah! So glad you stopped by. Whistling in the Dark is every bit as good as I said it was. (The fact that the author gave me a cherry-red fully restored 1957 Corvette with white leather upholstery had nothing to do with it – lol) She’s a very good author.