Boys of Life (Plume) [Paperback]

Paul Russell (Author)

Book Description

Series: Plume | Publication Date: August 1, 1992

In this powerful novel, the acclaimed author of The Salt Point portrays a coming of age overshadowed by an ominous infatuation with a dangerous man. Owen, Kentucky, just isn't big enough for Tony Blair. Bored with small-town life, already a problem drinker at 17, Tony is restless--ideal prey for Carlos Reichart, a Warhol-esque filmmaker.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As this compelling novel opens, Tony Blair, ex-cult film star, is in prison for murder. How he got there is the puzzle that drives this powrful coming-of-age story, a tragedy about an emotionally battered gay youth with appeal that easily extend beyond a gay readership. At 16, callow Tony is plucked from a Kentucky trailer by arty filmmaker Carlos Reichart, who seduces him, brings him to New York as his live-in lover and casts him in a series of homoerotic, increasingly violent and sadomasochistic films. As Tony, now 26, recalls the past decade, we learn how he enlisted runaway boys for Carlos's sexually explicit movies, and how he broke free of Carlos's destructive grip by marrying a rock singer, Monica, and moving to Memphis. The electrifying climax which sends Tony to jail comes as a surprise. Russell ( The Salt Point ) has crafted a timely, involving tale that explores the outer limits of gay sexuality and the point at which art or artiness slides into exploitation.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Another bisexual soap opera from Russell (The Salt Point, 1990), this time about a Kentucky boy seduced by a New York filmmaker and brought to the Big Apple to make sadomasochistic movies. Tony Blair, writing a tell-all (from prison, we learn) because ``folks are basically buzzards when it comes to famous people,'' lives with his mom and brother in Owen, Kentucky, until he meets Carlos Reichart, in town to make a movie. Reichart, part genius, part guru, part psychopathic vampire, quickly has fellatio with Blair (Reichart: ``I've got you now. A person's semen contains every piece of information about that person'') and convinces him to return to his tenement loft in New York. Under Reichart's influence, Tony explores the scene and comes of age: ``Whatever was there for him to corrupt would've gotten corrupted anyway....'' As for Reichart, ``he knew it was fate.'' He puts Tony in his movies (Next Year in Gomorrah, The Gospel According to Sodom, and so forth). Then, as Reichart (``I'm making reality'') becomes increasingly drawn to life and porno instead of art, Tony reads (and shares with us) numerous interviews and film-mag pieces about Reichart, hangs out with a motley crew of kids and hangers-on, and finally meets Monica. He walks out on Reichart, goes to Memphis, and marries Monica, but things don't work out--in fact, Tony attends a controversial Reichart screening and discovers that the movie is dedicated to his brother, who (unknown to Tony) has been killed making a Reichart movie. Tony returns to New York, confronts Reichart, and, during fellatio in Central Park, stabs the filmmaker through the heart with a fence picket before turning himself in. This one works an intriguing vein where sex, violence, and the world of the auteur intersect, but melodrama and graphic sex limit its appeal. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Plume (August 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452268370
• ISBN-13: 978-0452268371
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #701,982 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Paul Russell's Boys of Life, November 30, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Boys of Life (Plume) (Paperback)

I have no qualms about saying that this is one of the most moving and convincing narratives I have ever read. I've read it about a dozen times in the past eight years, and every time I am further astonished at how believable the narrator's voice is. This novel is the story of an extraordinary life -- the narrator, a teenage boy, is seduced by an older man, and ends up leaving his sheltered existence in Kentucky to live in a bizarre combination of fame and squalor in New York City -- but the characters (outrageous and eccentric as most of them are)are portrayed with such love and humanity that it is next to impossible to believe that they are works of fiction. Not that it's exactly a happy book -- in fact it's pretty terrifying -- but I defy any reader to come away from it unmoved. I can't recommend it strongly enough!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book, But Not For People of Delicate Sensibilities, September 29, 2000

By 

Amanda Haynes (Kensington, Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Boys of Life (Plume) (Paperback)

When most authors make an artist the hero of a story, they write a self-indulgent parable about how "art" is so noble that the people who make it should not be held to the same moral standard as the rest of us, and damn the consequences. Russell, in a refreshing contrast, exposes the wretchedness that artists can create in thier own lives and those of other people when they value art over morality. I have never encountered a better depiction of nihilism among the avant--garde than this astounding novel. Many readers would find the voilence and explicit gay sex too strong, but those who delight in ugly beauty will love Boys of Life.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Impressive book, yet low quality?, May 18, 2001

By 

J. A. Elkink (Dublin, Ireland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Boys of Life (Plume) (Paperback)

Yesterday I finished reading this book and it leaves me with mixed feelings about it. On the one hand the book seems to be structured a bit clumsy. Sometimes it is a little too chaotic, while at other times it is too predictable. The author tried to much to write a complicated thought-through structure, while he misses the kind of genius some authors have when doing this. The book has a certain soap-level instead of being some kind of high-level classic. And the author tries too hard to make it a too well composed book, resulting in a too complicated and chaotic structure. He did the same in The Coming Storm, but to a slightly better effect.

However, I loved reading the book. So it's not impressive on the side of composition, but it is on the side of how he describes those peoples feelings and thoughts. How the story of those four intermingling lives gradually gets clear. The backcover is fully right when it uses words like 'preciousness and unpredictability, power and illogic'. The book gives me a melancholic feeling - the kind of feeling I like and the reason I read this kind of books. It is not just like a soap - the way the author describes relationships and the accompanying feelings are, in my opinion, close to brilliant. (Or, would it be that the way he describes human relationships is just close to how I think of it - in the sense that the book is not brilliant, but the author's ideas coincidentely close to mine - well, that you of course have to judge for yourself.)

So. Not a classic, but not a soap either. Not a must to read, but neither a 'one-in-a-dozen' kind of book.

I'm impressed, at least.