Customer Reviews

The Boys in the Brownstone

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Kevin Scott writes an intelligent, compassionate and witty novel about the condition of man. In this case the setting is the turn of the 20th century in the United States. Many of the divisive issues of the times are reflected in the lives of several gay men whose different backgrounds intersect at the Brownstone, a gay bar on the Upper East side of Manhattan. The author is a master at exposing both the very real and the very human vulnerabilities in his characters as they manifest themselves against the backdrop of an unusually fierce snowstorm hitting the east coast during the holiday season and the refuge the club provides. This is a book that will make you laugh and cry as it exposes the complexity of human nature, which is often as irrational as it is rational, and whose altruistic impluses are usually darkly shaded. The book begins slowly but soon draws you into a great read. Many of the lines and observations will linger in your thoughts long after you have finished the book. While "Boys of the Brownstone" is published as part of a series of gay men's fiction its appeal is sophisticated and universal. I am looking forward to Kevin Scott's next book!

Could this be "Tales of the City" for New York? While this first installment may not have allowed for Maupin's depth of character development, "Brownstone" certainly shows promise. This was a great invention to introduce a number of lives, most of them intersecting each other. The characters were believable because the author didn't resort to stale stereotypes or tired queerisms. I do hope that we'll be seeing more of the Brownstone. If only there were such a place in every neighborhood. Not a bad place to weather either the storms of reality or metaphor.

One of my Christmas gifts was the Kevin Scott novel "The Boys in the Brownstone", and I was given the perfect opportunity to curl up with it on New Years Eve, when my husband was out working, and I was home alone during a rainstorm-induced power outage. Nothing to do but pour a glass of eggnog, light some candles, and read this entertaining story. The Brownstone is a gay bar on the upper east side, and the novel is really a series of tangential vignettes. Think "Desperate Housewives: Gay New York Edition". Each chapter introduces a new set of characters, and explores a different flawed relationship, but all of the characters end up at the Brownstone sooner or later, and featured characters in one vignette often appear one the sidelines of other vignettes. Sometimes in the bar, we revisit the same conversations from another character's perspective (like the film "Go"). The characters and stories were all engaging enough to keep me turning the pages with interest. The fact that it was set during Christmastime made it more fun to read it at this time of year, but that's certainly not essential. Reading it all in one weekend is useful, as the number of characters starts to accumulate, and there were a few times where I had to stop and think "now who was that one again?". Doubtful you'll glean any profound insights here, as it's all a bit melodramatic (all of the characters have issues). But it's very entertaining, a great read for a weekend at the beach or a long flight. Or a New Years Eve power outage.

A rare form, this work can be read in 2 hours at the beach or on a plane, or can be savored and analyzed for weeks.

This is a truly excellent read. Mr. Scott does the nearly impossible. We are brought into the lives of a rich and diverse set of characters, less by their actions and more by their dialogue. The lives and stores are artfully woven.

The upper east side crowd is well represented in this delightfull book. As a disclaimer, at a point in the past I was among them, but have since moved on to other demographics. As such I can say thet Kevin Scott does a great job in character description, and by letting us in their backgrounds, make them so much more real.It was the humanity of all his characters, their doubts, sufferings, hopes and families that was most touching to me. Gay lives are usually perceived in our conservative times as permissive, but in one the best lines in the book ( and there quite a few)he summs it up: we are all looking for love ("gay and straigt"), and sex is just one way of getting it (my italics). The book lets you in one of the pillars New York queer life, and as such I am glad the book registers it for posterity. I kept hoping, however, as I hit the last pages, for Kevin Scott to give us other books with the same richness for other neighborhoods.

The Brownstone, a gay bar on the affluent Upper East Side of New York, is frequented by a varied assortment of hung-up gay men; and the staff a mix of immigrants and hustlers. As the story unfolds in six parts it centres in turn on individual characters or groups of characters, their lives and loves, with the Brownstone as a point of reference. The different individuals appear and reappear in the stories as their lives intersect.
The wild array of characters include a guy who, having finally accepted that he his gay, has just separated from his wife and is now cruising for a hook up; a priest who has been stealing from his monsignor to finance his handsome lover's new landscape gardening business, and an AIDs suffering neurotic bar-man who's been abused by a succession of lovers. There is the all too respectable political candidate with a social conscience who is about to marry a soap opera writer who still has a heart for his best man, an afro-American Princeton graduate of class. Then the art gallery owner bent on revenge after his lover has just been murdered; the caring psychotherapist; and the museum curator who is infatuated with the pianist whose previous boyfriends had the unfortunate habit of committing suicide.
This is an hilariously funny, at times quite touching array of stories, that cleverly intertwine with and overlap each other. Often we see the same events from the different characters' perspectives. The reader just needs to remember who's who as the various participants crop up different times throughout the story.

It is very rare for me to start a book and not finish it but that is the case with Boys in the Brownstone. Too many characters, story doesn't flow well and didn't really care to see what happened next ... so I closed the book with probably 50 pages left and won't open it again.