Jack the Modernist (High Risk Books) [Paperback]

Robert Gluck (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1995 | Series: High Risk Books

This novel is set in San Francisco in 1981, a world of loss that doesn't add up. Bob loves Jack, Joe-Toe does too, and Phyllis loses her son. Bob goes to the baths, gossips on the phone, goes to a bar, thinks about werewolves, has an orgasm, and discovers a number of truths about Jack.

Product Details

• Paperback: 166 pages
• Publisher: Serpent's Tail (April 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1852423331
• ISBN-13: 978-1852423339
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 4.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,955,482 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars _ Jack the Modernist_ is both modern and marvelous, August 14, 1997

By 

Hon-no-mushi (Kyoto, Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jack the Modernist (High Risk Books) (Paperback)

_Jack the Modernist_. When I found this novel by Robert Gluck on the shelves of my local gay bookstore, it was originally the title that seduced me. What about this book, I wondered, warrants the inclusion of the word "modernist" in the title? Tired by the omnipresent coming-out novel, the promise of homoerotic literature marked with modernist experimentation was infinitely enticing. Gluck certainly did not disappoint. Almost from the first page, one is seduced by his viciously beautiful style. The short pages are filled with an intensely dense imagery that appeals alternately to sight, sound, and taste. The narrator's walk with his dog on page three becomes a virtual orgy of the senses. A visit to the movies at the end of the novel becomes a visual and philosophical adventure. Sex between the characters is so vivid that one can virtually feel it. One is consistently confronted by metaphors so strikingly unusual, by language so sonorously melodic that one cannot help but read it aloud and tremble. Gluck is modern not just in his intense bombardment of imagery but his use of "found art" -- images that the author has collected and has included in the text to illustrate certain metaphors or points. The book literally becomes a multimedia experience. Meanwhile, Gluck blurs the traditional lines of fiction and non-fiction by assigning the narrator his own name and by revealing that certain elements of the plot do not match his actual experience with "Jack," the title character. Gluck also experiments with the narrative form itself by occasionally breaking into dramatic form, marking each character's dialogue with a name and a colon. Such characteristics are almost unheard of in the relatively naturalistic world of gay fiction, save perhaps in the recent works of Jeanette Winterson. Ultimately, it is the marvelous, unique style is in the end that elevates this work so far above many works of gay interest. To all interested in either gay literature or narrative experimentation, this book is a must

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A book which I gave up after 2 pages, November 1, 2010

By 

Kiwifunlad (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jack the Modernist (High Risk Books) (Paperback)

I very rarely ever give up on a book and this one has to have been my quickest ever. If you are in a book shop and you are tempted into buying this book I suggest that you read the first two pages and if you are not put off then you may enjoy it. I just found the opening did not make sense and I skimmed ahead and did not find anything to make me want to read more.