Southminster Presbyterian Church
Music Minstries present
Cutting edge
A/T otherlode
a in c o n c e r t
A machete-wielding lover seeks revenge
in Testosterone , and a redneck dyke comes of age
in the sharp A Year of Full Moons
Saturday, December 2
8:00 pm • Tickets $ 18
12250 SW Denney Road
(Denney Rd exit off 217 @ Hall Blvd)
Beaverton, OR 97008
(503) 644-2073 info
A portion of the proceeds of this concert will go to
benefit Nazareth House, Capetown, South Africa in
their work with H1V/A1DS affected infants.
“ I WAS PREPARED TO BE IMPRESSED AND
ENTERTAINED. INSTEAD, I WAS SIMPLY
BLOWN AWAY,**
- D. P ascoe, con cert review
L yn n F ran ces A n d erso n
Getaway to the Oregon Coast...
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Thursday, December 14th • 8pm
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free House Concert in your own home with as
many friends as you’d like to invite! Winner will be
posted on www.lynnfrancesanderson.com
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esto ster o n e
by James Robert Baker. Alyson
Books, 2000; $22.95 hardcover.
¡f his story is not for the faint
of heart.
Testosterone is one of the
most strange, angry, violent and
deliciously quirky novels of the
year. Deliriously fast-paced and
highly charged with a dangerous
eroticism, it is destined to
become a cult classic, perhaps
even outside queerdom.
T h e book tells the messy,
drug-heightened tale o f Dean
Seagrave, a gay graphic novel writer and
movie buff who suspects his lover, Pablo, has
just tried to kill him by burning his house
down as he slept. As he seeks out Pablo, he
learns of the twisted, psychopathic behavior
his lover has been hiding from him and real
izes he is the only person who can stop this
“emotional serial killer.”
The first-person narrative is made extremely
immediate and intense by taking the form of a
transcript of tape recordings that Dean is mak
ing as he actually searches the streets, bars and
homes of Los Angeles— machete in hand—
seeking revenge on Pablo:
“PH tell you this much. I’m out looking for
action, some very serious action, today. I’m
seeking catharsis, a visceral catharsis— that’s
what I’m up to right now. I’m a no-bullshit guy,
and one angry queer, so don’t fuck with me
because I’m on a mission. Attention all breed
ers. You’d better part for me like the Red fuck
ing Sea, because I’m plenty pissed off, and if
you get in my way, I’ll ram your rear-end and
squash your little baby.”
O f course, as the novel progresses, one
begins to wonder who the real psycho is here,
Dean or Pablo. As Dean’s obsession for revenge
escalates, his friends become more nervous and
fearful for his own stability. The end of this
novel is one of the most brutal, violent pas
sages I have ever read and— I have to he hon
est— one of the most satisfying.
James Robert Baker was a unique new voice
in gay literature, and his loss to suicide in 1997
was devastating to readers and fans. He wrote
five books, most notably Tim and Pete and
Adrenaline, both of which will soon be repub
lished by Alyson Books. He was also a film
maker and was highly praised for his cult hit
Mouse Klub Konfidential, about a Mouseketeer
turned gay bondage filmmaker.
Testosterone is not a tale for everyone. But
for those of us who occasion
ally like a good mind-fuck
ing, angry, erotic, roller
coaster ride of a novel, this is
for you. — Glenn Williams
A Y ear of F ull M oons
by M adelyn Arnold.
St. Martins Press, 2000;
$25.95 hardcover.
(t 12-5 sun
Beaverton
503.626.0400
12300 NE Broadway
10-6:00 Mon-Sat 6 12-5 sun
www.cotton-cloud.com
ond novel is not again set in a
mental hospital, hut the envi
ronment is equally stifling.
Jos, a brilliant 15-year-old
baby dyke, tries to grow up in
a poor, working-class family in
the redneck town o f Summit,
Ky. Mom, once a talented
musician, is relegated to the
bedroom, where she is re
duced to recovering from and
producing more stillborn and
premature babies.
Her flimsy presence, com
parable to Jane Eyre’s mad
woman in the attic, forces Jos
and her twin, Elbe, to run the dysfunctional
family o f seven kids themselves. Dad, not
much more than an unstable and cruel dic
tator, regularly throws violent fits to exert
his power and regain his personal sense of
control. T h e man considers Jos a “failed
experimental system.”
A Year o f Full Moons stretches from its first
chapter, “April is the crudest month,” in 1963
to exactly one year later with the final chapter,
in which April is still “the crudest month.”
The accurate illustration of Jos’ painful sexual
awakening conveys Arnold’s sharp insight into
the human psyche and unveils her strong sense
of empathy. The lesbian awakening generally
requires a temporary heavy toll, and that is
genuinely represented in this cruel, yet enlight
ening, year.
A Year o f Full M oons presents a fairly typical
lesbian coming-of-age story with a lot of classic
ingredients. Jos does not want to wear women’s
clothes or play with horsies.
Bom a tomboy, she smokes cigarettes,
changes tires and is interested in the mystery of
explosives. Slowly hut surely, she develops a
gaydar of her own and figures out both herself
and the hypocrisy of her hostile heterosexual
surroundings:
“They’d want you to make them come and
then they screech how they weren’t gay! Then
they remind you you’re sick. And they might
catch God and turn you in.”
Interestingly, Jos’ first affair with another
queer dramatically leaps off the classical
track. T h e representative pupil-mentor
romance is replaced with a short affair with a
stem , sadistic riding teacher, which gears up
rather abruptly and could easily be mistaken
for a Pat Califia scene.
Sim ultaneous with Jo s’ personal battle
for civil rights, Arnold explores the whole
backdrop o f turbulent racial, class and gen
der issues festering in the
early ’60s A m erican
South. A lot o f issues at
once but masterfully
pulled together.
— Els D ebbaut J£7]
A YEAR
Portland
503.335.0758
T
A U T O M O T I V F
Mechanics With A Conscience
(end x-ray vision)
iM M Q r w IiU k
¿Sec««««
Gerard Lillie *5934 N.E. Halsey
ou could find it in the
Lambda Award-winning
Bird-Eyes, and it’s back in
A Year o f Full Moons— the
merciless, rigid structure of a
diversity-blind society. Seattle
author Madelyn Arnold’s sec-
Y
OF FU LL
MOONS
M adelyn A rnold will
read from A Year of Full
Moons 7 p.m . Nov. 29 at In
O ther Words, 3734 S .E .
Hawthorne Blvd.
G lenn W illiams writes
poetry, prose, plays, periodica
and pom in Portland.
E ls D ebbaut is a Portland
free-lance writer.