The Lord Won't Mind (Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (Peter & Charlie Series) [Paperback]

Gordon Merrick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1995 | Series: Peter & Charlie Series

Prior to the publication of this beloved novel, nearly every gay novel and play seemed to end in suicide--or at least deep despair. Merrick was one of the first writers to insist that a gay relationship could in fact be a happy one. The Lord Won't Mind tells the story of Peter and Charlie, who begin a love affair at their Ivy League college in the '60s.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Alyson Books (July 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555832903
• ISBN-13: 978-1555832902
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #955,426 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wow! Talk about a romance novel with a bite!, April 14, 2003

By 

Get What We Give (Georgia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Lord Won't Mind (Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (Peter & Charlie Series) (Paperback)

Several reviewers have mistakenly identified this book's setting as the 1960's. The correct setting is that of World War II - or the years in which it took place. This is an important point to note as it does have a great deal of bearing on the reader in understanding the circumstances of the characters. The world in which two men loved each other was far different in 1940 than it was in 1960, 1980, or 2000.

The sexual escapades of these boys is revealing in the secrecy in which they must take place. This isn't the modern era or anywhere near it. Homosexuality was considered a mental illness - one for which men were sent to mental hospitals and relegated there for life. It was a time where a man thought to be homosexual was a social paraiah and not allowed to associate with regular society. It was a time where men knew they could be put in prison for such acts.

I first read parts of this book that I acquired through a "five finger discount" as a youth of 14 only several years after its publication. I couldn't really read the book for fear my parents or friends would discover it. I perused it looking for the "dirty" parts which I was certain would tell me all I needed to know about sex between men - and then I promptly disposed of it.

Only recently when I purchased a copy of it and read it (as it really would be unfair to say I had re-read it), I discovered that while "The Lord Won't Mind" certainly is vivid and descriptive in its sexual depictions, it is far from pornographic as I'd imagined it as a youth. In fact, with the exception of some of its more detailed descriptions, this book is not too unlike E.M. Forster's "Maurice". The quality of the written word is quite amazing - it was a fact that had escaped me many years earlier and made me think this author nothing more than a gay Harlequin romance writer. I have not yet read any of his other books, but I do intend to do so. I can only hope that the quality that Merrick displays in this, his first work of its kind, comes through in his other works.

The book is the story of cousins, one very well to do and the other no so very much so, but certainly not poor. Brought together by their grandmother, the older, Charlie, is asked to watch over the younger, Peter, and help him along in life. Soon the twenty something boys discover that they are attracted to each other and decide to act on it. However, to give Merrick more his due, these boys are quite realistically portrayed, if not a bit too fawningly at times. The story builds as the boys discover their love for each other. Of course, no decent book can allow its two central characters true happiness without a few bumps in the road - and that's what this book is about.

While today it might seem trite and ridiculous for two men to broach that subject so quickly and devotedly - you must remember that at the time there were no gay bars that a respectable person would dare set foot in. There was no internet nor clubs for such men. In other words, one could only hope to find a soul mate or partner and then did so happily without the modern cruising and recoupling that takes place today.

In short, this is a fine book. It is far superior to most books of its type and, I'm happy that it was as groundbreaking as it was, because Merrick got to see his books reach acclaim before he died of lung cancer.

Get it, read it, and immerse yourself in another era.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gordon Merrick Then & Now, June 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Lord Won't Mind (Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (Peter & Charlie Series) (Paperback)

I remember seeing Gordon Merrick's novels in bookstores when I was in my teens. They were softbound with provocative covers of half-naked men. I was instantly drawn. I read The Lord Won't Mind for the first time in the summer of 1991 in my mid-twenties. A man I was "bunking" with for a few days on Nantucket had purchased it (hardcover, no jacket, no images) from the library downtown for $.50. I could hardly put the book down once I started it. The material produces an arousal rather quickly. The description of its leading players, however, namely Charlie, Peter and the ever-whimsical C.B., give the reader the clear impression that there is more to the story at hand than sexual proclivities of the young and well endowed. Charlie Mills is the hero of Gordon Merrick's trilogy of male love (One For The Gods, Forth Into Light), Peter the undeniable ingenue. C.B. plays a rather due role. At the onset of the story, she is the pillar of strength to these young men; in the latter, she becomes more the object of dissention. (But do find out for yourself.) Unfortunately, I never got beyond the first few chapters of the book that summer before my "bunking" arrangement had ended and I had no further access to the book. I hunted it down in Manhattan only to discover that the heiress of its original publisher had put the material deliberately out of print. Several years passed before I read The Lord Won't Mind in its entirety, now re-published by Alyson Books. It is highly recommended reading for anyone who believes in the heart of the young, the steadfastness of true love, or just wants to read a hot novel.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gay bodice ripper, May 16, 2000

By 

Andrew Rasanen (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lord Won't Mind (Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (Peter & Charlie Series) (Paperback)

This novel is a liberating manifesto of the right to love whomever we please, disguised as a romantic potboiler. Charlie and Peter, the young lovers, are well-endowed golden boys (like most gay men, to be sure) whose highly emotional relationship undergoes just about every test imaginable. Charlie, the more reluctant, more closeted of the two, and therefore the one with more power, even marries an ambitious actress in an attempt to fit in. When he can't measure up, she exacts a lurid, biting revenge. Peter wants only to celebrate his love, and while he is more naive and vulnerable, he is also more pure, more true to himself. By novel's end, it is the slightly coarse Charlie who is learning from Peter about human feelings. Merrick can certainly carry you along with his writing. There's plenty of erotic sex, along with touches that flesh out the lovers' bond, such as the mash note Peter sends Charlie, obviously from him, which he refrains from signing, coyly writing that Charlie will have to guess whom it's from. Of course true love survives in the end, because Merrick's principal (and principled) reason for writing his novels was to demonstrate that love between men is the same kind of love that men and women feel for each other. The title of this one says it all.