Animal Erotica at Bluestockings
Tuesday, April 5th, 2011
Unfortunately, their “café” behind the counter is closed at the moment, but when it is up and running it gives you virtually no reason to leave. Grab a book, a magazine, a coffee and sit down. The store is small enough to be cozy, has just enough seating and the staff is friendly and helpful. They won’t bother you if you want to just hang around and read.
You should definitely treat Bluestockings as an all around experience than just a bookstore or venue. The selection is the reason I keep going back. They have the usual sections like World and U.S. History AND Women’s Studies but their specific and ever-changing sections are consistently intriguing. On this visit I lingered for a while at one shelf thumbing through books about Zapatistas. Additionally, they have a large cart full of cheap zines ($1 and up) as well as a table with all the books that accompany the events at the store.
This visit however was to hear a reading from Kyell Gold’s new novel “Isolation Play,” a gay, so-called erotic romance novel with anthropomorphic animals instead of humans.
It was bad. Very, very bad. Not in a gross out way, which I half expected, but in a “this resembles boring young-adult fiction” way.
The excerpt I heard from “Isolation Play” was an extremely dull story about a guy, Dev, bringing his boyfriend, Lee, home from college. The mother flits around doing laundry, Dev shows Lee his room and they have a very short embrace – more on this in a minute. At dinner, everyone must wait to serve themselves before the father gets the first helping and when Dev tries to talk to his father about his boyfriend the father changes the topic to sports.
As Gold finished reading, he left off with Dev wondering if his father would punch Lee. “To find out,” Gold said, “You’ll have to buy the book.” What a cliffhanger!
Oh, and they’re all foxes by the way.
This was easy to forget as Gold never capitalized on the fact at all. No irony here, everything was written and received without a laugh or chuckle by the audience. Phrases like “I put my paws on his hip” and “he opened his muzzle to say something” were eerily vacant of humor as Gold read them deadpan. I didn’t expect comedy but the opportunity to play with the whole concept a little seemed wasted.
The most erotic the story ever got was something along the lines of the main character imagining “pushing stiff into him” before remembering they were in his mothers house and walking away. I’ve seen shows on Animal Planet much more hardcore than that.
Go to Bluestockings to browse and educate yourself and stick around for their endless types of readings on politics, poetry, fiction, etc., but stay away from the “furry” romance novels. You will not be rewarded with good writing nor anyone dressed up as an animal.
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