The Palace of Varieties [Paperback]

James Lear (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 28, 2008

This extremely graphic novel brims with male sex from the sordid to the sublime, in every position, place, and variety. Watch and enjoy as Paul Lemoyne leaves his humble home to begin a new life as a music hall stagehand, but soon discovers there are richer pickings to be had from the stage-door johnnies who haunt the Palace of Varieties Music Hall. And thus ensues our rake's progress from low-life prostitution to the salons and studios of Mayfair, from the bath-houses of Bermondsey to the rarefied circles of modern art. All the while behind each of Paul's outrageous sexual adventures lurks the mysterious figure of Albert Abbott, his lover, corrupter, and Svengali.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"James Lear's novels have dominated gay erotic fiction charts since publication...Just a few pages in, the secret of Lear's success becomes blindingly apparent. Practically every page is graced with an abundance, a pornucopia if you will, of graphic bonking...but it's not just the sex that keeps you reading. Lear's prose is vibrant and colourful...This isn't porn accompanied by a wah-wah guitar, this is porn to the strains of Beethoven's 'Ode To Joy', each vividly realised ejaculation accompanied by a fanfare and the crashing of cymbals." -- Time Out London--June 2008

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Cleis Press (April 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 157344314X
• ISBN-13: 978-1573443142
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #990,081 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well Written! Lots ofVarieties!!, October 17, 2006

By 

Jane (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Palace of Varieties (Paperback)

Great story that moves along smoothly. Well-developed characters with lots of variety of sex. Just the right splash of emotions an angst of lead character who is 18 at time of story. Very easy to read with lots of gay sex! Lear captures the emotions and changing situations of our hero and has interesting characters that come along for the ride. "Excuse the pun!" I wasn't disppointed.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Immersed in the world of vice, but not so far gone that I had lost all moral sense.", August 1, 2008

By 

Michael Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Palace of Varieties (Paperback)

Bawdy, squalid and irreverent, James Lear's sexually graphic novel transports us to London of 1935 and into the life of eighteen-year-old Paul Lemoyne, a waif and wild child whose fleshy adventures play out amongst the rarefied world of music halls, train stations, public toilets and the sordid back alleys of South London. Escaping an abusive and alcoholic father, who cannot help but conceal his shame beneath a pitiful display of hostility ,Paul escapes from Sussex and hops on a train to London from Sussex.

Although Paul has very little education, he possesses a fierce natural intelligence; it's not surprising then that he is able to secures employment as a stage hand at the South London Palace of Varieties, a bawdy and ramshackle music hall, smelling heavily of unwashed bodies, cigarette smoke and perfume. Under the tutelage of Mr. Nicholas Holly the General Manager, Paul begins his services in this grand life of hard physical labor, that involves clambering around scaffolds and sweeping the stage, and also allowing Holly to give Paul oral satisfaction when Holly so desires it.

But it is in the gentleman's cloakroom in Waterloo station which really cements Paul's career as a procurer of male needs, where one can "wash and brush-up for a sixpence" and where at the urinal involving two young gents in identical black suits, Paul has his first true sleazy experience where he also gets to earn his first crown. Soon enough Paul's consumed with the idea of getting sex wherever and with whoever he can, becoming a master of this extracurricular work.

While Paul aches to conquer the red-headed Kieran, his affable young work colleague, he's also helped by Vera, a genial and somewhat effeminate dresser in business like ambition of servicing many of the "toffs and stage-door johnnies" that come to the performances, especially the giant Mr. Newsome with his hands on his hips, "his huge weapon throbbing before him," and where he and Paul end up taking pleasure in each other as "crudely and as brutally" as they liked.

Paul rapidly becomes an enterprising young man, luckily blessed with a true tart's instinct for divining the wishes of his clients and he begins to ply his trade at the various pubs that pepper the East End, low dives, frequented largely by stagehands, prostitutes, laborers and itinerants. The stink of beer and fags and unwashed men requiring him to be crude and coarse and above all dirty. But it is through Paul's association with Mr. Albert Abbott who takes a beneficent in him forcing him to do dirty things with a handsome art deco paperweight that Paul is eventually thrust into bigger markets in an effort to make real money and perhaps also the chance to make something more of himself.

Although Albert swiftly becomes the ruling passion in Paul's life, he's always there playing Paul like a puppet, even pecuring him the genius artist Mikhail Boleslavsky while also levying a certain amount of his cash flow. Albert Abbott is just one just one of a dozen colorful characters who populate Paul's little world, they're the supporting players in a smut-filled dream of which Paul is always the hero. Author James Lear's unashamed descriptions of Paul's sexual philandering is shocking, but it is the author's colorful combination of 1930's London and its world of vice along with descriptions of Paul engaging in some of the most degrading sexual activities that make this novel so unbelievably entertaining and also so shocking. Mike Leonard August 08.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sorry, Naysayers, February 13, 2009

By 

Lilyrose (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Palace of Varieties (Paperback)

I love James Lear, his other books, and this one, too. Too much sex? Read something else. Disgusting scenes? My absolute favorites. To each his own, and I'm glad I own this book. Thank you, Mr. Lear.