Customer Reviews

Bruiser (A Five Star Title)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This novel, describing the unlikely affair between a 42-year-old expatriate Englishman and an 18-year-old waiter/amateur boxer/occasional rent boy, came as a surprise. The pair meet in Chicago, where the older man, the narrator, is living in a seedy hotel while avoiding his obligation to his family business. One of the great rewards of this novel lies in the narrator's outsider view of American culture, surreal warts and all. (Especially good is the murderer-as-celebrity subplot later in the book.) Another reward is the complete credibility of their relationship: both men--any suggestion of pedophilia is just plain inaccurate--are outsiders for very different reasons; but as their friendship evolves, they begin to understand and care for each other.

Though this book is ostensibly a road novel, and the destination is Brazil, most of the action takes place in Chicago and San Antonio; Texas, despite its mythically American significance to the narrator, appears as rainy, dark, muddy, bleak. It is here, though, that both men must reconcile their outsider identity with their need for each other. Their separate journeys and mutual arrival bring the novel's greatest reward: a happy (!) ending. In fact, the book ends with a brilliant, shimmering sunset. Recommended.

"Bruiser" is the sort of book I usually hate but it was so well done I liked it in spite of myself. It is a love story, but very low key, told in that sort of flatfooted tone that some critics call "K-Mart realism." It concerns a British importer living in Chicago who meets a young amateur boxer, who winds up living with him.

The two men struggle through the necessary adaptations of living together such as conflicting schedules and HIV status. They plan (although "plan" is perhaps too firm a verb) a motor trip to South America but don't make it past Texas. The setting for the second half of the book is depressing but what redeems it is the obvious love the men feel for each other even though we never hear "I love you."

In other words, this book is so well told that we readers feel the two men's affection for each other and how it motivates their actions without string-pulling. As a Chicago resident, I can certainly say that the Chicago locales were well rendered. Overall "Bruiser" is a good job, and I look for further works from this author.

Practically everything about this slim novel is fresh. Taking now fairly stale themes in gay fiction (older man/younger man, AIDS anxiety, the Englishman abroad, adventures on the road), House transforms them into something altogether mesmerizing with chiseled prose and twists of plot so convincing and immediate that one sometimes feels like he's reading a private journal. (The writing often reminded me of Denton Welch's journals and short stories.) The book manages to be erotic while avoiding the breathless ecstasies of much romantic writing--the characters are not angelically handsome, not every moment teeters on sexual sublimity, and House rarely relies on abstractions, preferring viscerally concrete details instead. The book is worldly wise, also, without lapsing into preachiness. The world House paints here is grim--full of brutality, abusive stupidity, fear, even criminality--and while doing nothing to contradict this bleak view of things, he also offers glimmers of grace--not divine grace, to be sure, but the musty, sometimes messy grace of human connectedness.

House performs at least a couple of feats of magic with this novel. First of all he has written a love story in which neither character says, "I love you" to the other. Such declaration is unnecessary. The reader knows, through their actions, how Paul and Adrian feel about each other. Such is the true novelist's craft, to show rather than merely tell. Secondly, House has made effective use of present tense narration. I usually abhor this point of view for its pretensiousness, but this time it doesn't detract from the flow or interest of the story.

House has taken what could easily become maudlin and made it moving and believable.

Are sexual attraction and love distinct, and if they are, what is the relation between them? Richard House's novel is a powerful new addition to the vast literature dealing with these questions.

In the central relationship between the teenager Adrian and the fortyish Englishman Harris, sexual attraction is born out of the need for love at Adrian's end, and deep love grows out of what for all appearances starts as intense sexual attraction at the Englishman's end. By the end, trust and a kind of domestic routine are established. The mood is throughout bleak and the surroundings are seedy, all the better highlighting the nobility and beauty of a human relationship fueled by love. Much of the book covers the pair's travels and one may object to the drab and largely predictable uniformity of the landscape. By the same token the dialogue between the two men is somewhat formulaic. But these are quibbles, the book stands on the insightful manner in which it follows the growth of love and attraction between human beings, and at this deep level it delivers.

I fell in love with this book and don't know how I missed it when it was first published...I found it an intriguing story, realistically told, about coming to terms with possible HIV+ status, as well as the coming together of two completely different types whose backgrounds could not be more dissimilar. There was no sugary endings, the writing was lean and I enjoyed it immensely...

I was expecting a novel that had something to tell. I was hoping Adrian and Paul would find a happy medium somewhere but they just seem to settle for what is in front of them.

Paul, a lonely English man staying in Chicago escaping his family and work, but not without financial resources, meets Adrian a young waiter. Adrian is about seventeen years old, Paul is old enough to be his father, but Adrian soon moves in with Paul in his hotel as they slip into an easy relationship together. We gradually learn that Adrian, a keen amateur boxer, is also escaping his past. The two men begin planning a trip to South America together, and eventually when they have completed all the necessary arrangements and overcome a few problems, they set off. But along the way they encounter a few more problems, and gradually learn a little more about each other.

Bruiser is and enchanting, beautifully written melancholy story. The enigmatic relationship between the two men is charming and captivating, ever fringed with an edge of uncertainty; the conclusion satisfying.

I thought the idea of reading a novel is for entertainment and to be taken away from the present. This was like reading a reality show whereby the reader is watching day to day occurrances.. then - the ending is 'to be continued'. Perhaps I missed some deeper meaning in this story. Perhaps the author is writing this story on an existencial level that I don't get! Perhaps it is meant to be studied in an English class to find deeper meanings! However, I very much liked the tender and poignant relationship between the 2 characters. That part of the story was touching. I hoped it would last for both of them. They both seemed so fragile and vulnerable. But what was 'the story'?? We are following 2 lovers as they seek change, and new beginnings. The story is easy to read and flows nicely but if it wasn't for the occasional sex romp I wouldn't believe I was reading the book I ordered. I am glad it wasn't any longer.

Then it ends with a weather report.

This is an excellent exploration of the complexities and subtle tensions of a relationship between Paul, a middle-aged somewhat disillusioned expatriate and Adrian, a young vulnerable hustler and waiter. The story is set against a bleak landscape of middle America with its anonymous and drab motels and diners. If you want a neat and happy ending you will not find it here. But the tone is fundamentally optimistic, showing that two very different and unsettled people can find real comfort in each other. I look forward to reading the author's second book, Uninvited.