Customer Reviews

A Cage of Bones

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Sexy and intelligent novel mixing fashion with politics.

Jeffrey Round's A Cage of Bones follows the experiences of Warden, a Toronto gay man who makes it big on the catwalks of Europe. I found Round's writing to be both seductive and insightful. The novel reveals a writer whose life experience has enriched his outlook on life; someone who is now in a position to share some of this with his readers. Round's novel is permeated by this sense of confidence and strong moral vision.

A Cage of Bones is A Room with a View for the gay 90s. It is hilariously funny but its social and political philosophy is astute. The fashion and alternative rock worlds, the two main settings for the novel, are described with meticulous but loving details.

Highly recommended.

The writing here is graceful and stylish which is in keeping with the theme of the novel - the fashion industry. Who can resist the visual impact of those beauties prancing down the catwalk, trying to make us believe that the clothes mean something to them while we know that they just want us to look at them?

The unsophisticated Warden Fields, from Toronto, is one such, having been pressured to model in Europe by a model agency. He had earlier been spotted in a group of volleyball players at Hanlan's Point for a jean commercial as the all-Canadian boy. So off he goes, in his naive way, to be absorbed into that volatile atmosphere, and to fall for Joshua who puts political activism before commitment, thereby drawing him into illegal activity, and eventually, jail.

The story is fluid and clearly based in the author's experiences in the fashion trade, he is only unconvincing when he assures us, for legal purposes, that it is a work of fiction.

A Cage of Bones is a story set largely in the modelling world. Warden is Canadian and unaware of the commercial potential of his looks until he is whisked away to fame and fortune by an Italian modelling agency. Jeffrey Round clearly knows the business he is writing about, and gives the story a pleasing twist when he injects his narrative with high drama in the form of Warden's affair with Joshua Behrens, a radical pop star with political ideals, who will drag Warden into deeper trouble than he can possibly imagine.

A good read.

If this is the state of gay themed literature, we are in BIG trouble. Read the sample before you buy. Enough said.

Published in Britain, A Cage of Bones is an impressively mature first novel by Canadian Jeffrey Round.

The naive, or repressed, Anglo-Saxon who experiences an erotic awakening on a trip to sunnier climes is a familiar literary figure, from Melville through Gide and Forster to The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone and beyond. In A Cage of Bones, the traveller is a young Canadian fashion model, Warden Fields, gay but not yet out, who finds himself working for an agency in Milan. There, he becomes lovers with an Italian boy before being transferred to rainy London where his involvement with a young left-wing pop singer takes his hitherto charmed life on a dark and unexpected detour.

There are some charming Durrellesque descriptions here: "Under the canopy of night, Florence glowed like a tiny music box built with tiny, bejeweled fingers. The sky stretched overhead like a net covered in thousands of tiny fish, their scales winking and twitching as they strained to be free." Yet for the most part, Round's prose is smoothly transparent, giving his narrative a quiet strength and authority. Erotic scenes (which even experienced writers often botch) are deftly rendered here, avoiding the pitfalls of coyness on the one hand and pornography on the other.

Though set in the milieu of male fashion modeling, this is neither a glamorization nor an exposé, but rather a thoughtful, realistic story of one gentle young man's coming of age. Before the novel is over, Warden learns some essential truths about himself, friendship, freedom, and the often unfair ways of the world. He emerges from his travails matured, scarred, and, happily, still able to love and hope.

What more could you ask for? The writing is graceful and stylish and the plot leads us down the catwalks of Europe and into the bedrooms of rock stars. Round explores these topics with a literary astuteness seldom seen. The fashion and rock music worlds can be trashy but Round expertly avoids letting the prose follow suit. Instead he uses these settings only as a backdrop for a wonderful, and often moving coming-of-age story.

A definite keeper and perfect gift for that special someone.

Jeffrey Round's A Cage of Bones follows the experiences of Warden, a Toronto gay man who makes it big on the catwalks of Europe. I found Round's writing to be both seductive and insightful. The novel reveals a writer whose life experience has enriched his outlook on life; someone who is now in a position to share of this experience with his readers. Round's novel is permeated by this sense of confidence and strong moral vision. A Cage of Bones is also A Room with a View for the gay 90s. It is hilariously funny but its social and political philosophy is astute. The fashion and alternative rock worlds, the two main settings for the novel, are described with meticulous but loving details. Highly recommended.