Customer Reviews

The Phoenix

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Jack Rourke and his twin brother Michael are raised by an unloving prostitute mother and an abusive sailor father in the squalor of the late nineteenth century London slums. When Jack's brother dies at age thirteen, Jack violently escapes his old man's clutches and runs away.

Nick Stuart grows up on a farm with a religious fundamentalist father and helpless mother. Raised to follow in his father's footsteps and become the country doctor/vet, Nick rebels, flees his repressive father, and enrolls at university in London to receive an education.

Both young men try hard to escape the limitations of their youth. With the help of a theater owner, Lizbet Porter, and an adoptive father, Xavier St. Denys, Jack tries to shed the horror and grief of his frightful past. He reinvents himself as Kit St. Denys and becomes an actor and owner of a repertory company. Meanwhile, Nick starts his own medical practice and is committed to helping the downtrodden and poor receive medical care.

These two men might never have met one another, except that Nick and some friends attend a performance of "Hamlet," and Nick is spellbound by the starring actor, Kit St. Denys. He goes back to see the play repeatedly. Eventually, by chance, the two men meet, and it's love and lust and compelling attraction all at first sight.

But the story is hardly begun before complications develop in the most delicious ways. Kit has hidden so much of his past, even from himself, and Nick has trouble reconciling religion, family expectations, and the overwhelming compulsion he feels for Kit. There are plot twists and unexpected turns, and just when you think you understand what will happen next, Sims upends expectations with a deft and gleeful hand.

At one point, Kit gives Nick a book of sonnets in which he inscribes the following:

Without the sanction of Society,
Without the sanction of the Church,
Without the sanction of God,
I love you.

Though the men seem destined for one another, it seems that the world, London society, the theater, whole continents, and even Kit and Nick themselves conspire to keep the two apart. How can these two talented but haunted men possibly create a life together?

THE PHOENIX is a magnificent tour de force, a novel of searing power and grace and constant surprises as it winds its way through London and New York, the slums, high society, fancy theaters, castles, madness, and the agony of one wounded heart seeking comfort and love in the arms of another man despite being without the sanction of society, church, God, or his own good sense.

Ruth Sims has created an intensely fascinating world, Dickensian in breadth and compelling in its depth and the methods she uses to bring it to life. It's become commonplace for reviewers to toss off comment like "unputdownable," but in the case of THE PHOENEX, this is absolutely true. I haven't ready anything since Sarah Waters' work for evoking such an amazing and lush Victorian feel. Though the book is classified "historical," it's wildly evocative and dramatic without being melodramatic. The characters and themes will have you thinking about this book long after you've finished it. From the beginning to the end, the reader has no sure idea where the story will go, and while we fervently hope that Nick and Kit are, indeed, destined for love and happiness, the road they travel to invent and reinvent themselves is rocky, unpredictable, and utterly engrossing.

THE PHOENIX is fantastic writing and storytelling of the highest order. This is one book not to be missed. I give it my highest recommendation. ~Lori L. Lake, author of the "Gun" Series, Different Dress, Ricochet in Time, Snow Moon Rising, Stepping Out: Short Stories, and editor of Romance for LIFE! and the Lambda Literary Award anthology finalist, The Milk of Human Kindness.

I have to admit, I wasn't prepared to love this book as much as I did. Rarely does a book make me cry, but this one did. It's difficult to believe this is a first novel, because Ruth Sim's highly competent and polished storytelling seems to be honed from years of hard-won experience. Her decades- and continents-spanning story of two people in love (and no, it doesn't really matter that they are the same gender; love is love as Sims' story more than competently proves) is an intriguing (and often mesmerizing) blend of historical fact, pathos, comedy, and heart. Sims creates characters that are not just stock protagonists for her sweeping romantic story, but real individuals we come to know and love. This is the kind of book that you're sorry to see come to an end. Highly recommended.

THE PHOENIX
By Ruth Sims
Paperback: 343 pages
Publisher: Writers' Collective (September 1, 2004)
ISBN: 1932133402
$16.95 US
$22.95 Canada
Available at Amazon.com B&N
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Ruth Sims has written a book. I read a sample of Ruth's work elsewhere. That's why I drove into Philadelphia to buy it; $18.14, tax included. I put the book by my reading chair. I eyed the book for several days. I looked at the rich cover and admired the details featured on each beginning chapter page. I studied Ruth's photograph on the back. Her confident smile teased me.
"You know something I don't," I murmured to her.
Fifty pages into THE PHOENIX, I found out what. Ruth Sims is a consummate artist.
Now I know traditional reviews are replete with paragraphs full of character descriptions and plot analysis. I'm not a traditional reviewer. I'm not a reviewer at all. I'm a writer and so there will be none of that here.
What I want to tell you about is a talent. A talent that takes you, the reader, by the hand and says, "Come, walk, run, eat, sleep, bathe, laugh, cry, be brave and fearful, succeed, fail, mature and make love in a time and place you've only glimpsed in grainy films and stiff photographs. The story opens in the London of 1882 and closes as Le Belle Epoch tumbles into the age of automation.
The remarkable thing, for me at least, is the economy of words Sims uses.
I will offer only one example. Kit, the hero of the story, is in the home of a New York judge. "...Here the statues and pictures were no different than one would see in any grand home on the Avenue. Such neutered and strangulating respectability."
Such neutered and strangulating respectability; with just five words you know that the nude statues and paintings in the judge's library have been altered. Fig leaves and added drapery cover the subjects; no genitals are seen, no hint of sexuality-all in five words. Time and again Ruth Sims tells you what is, by telling you what is not.
Don't get me wrong. There are 343 pages in THE PHOENIX. Ruth Sims is not stingy in her storytelling.
Want a book you'll urge others to read? Then run, do not walk, and get a copy of THE PHOENIX.
Oh by the way, the most important word to remember in this little report is talent-there is no substitute!

Michael Halfhill
Author of BOUGHT AND PAID FOR
www.michalehalfhill.com

Like Tess of the d'Urbervilles or Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White, this Victorian novel is replete with plot twists, years-long detours, providential meetings, villainy, and a great deal of drama. And yet like Laura Argiri's The God in Flight , it differs from most other Victorian novels in that the two main characters who meet and fall in love are both men. One is an adopted son with a dark secret and a Dickensian background who has taken on a new identity, and the other is an uptight doctor with a strong religious background that would have made any Puritan proud.

Kit St. Denys, who began life as Jack Rourke (a street thief and pickpocket), is an up-and-coming actor in London. He has gone from poverty and abuse at fourteen when he fatally stabs his abusive father, to riches when he is adopted by a man who introduces him to the world of the wealthy and the theatre. Nick Stuart, the young doctor, is a troubled man who becomes estranged from his strict, unforgiving father when he goes off to medical school. Although his father is also a doctor, he is unwilling to allow his son to step beyond the small village and turns his back on Nick when he leaves home. Kit and Nick meet after one of Kit's critically acclaimed performances and, from there, they begin a troubled but madly-in-love relationship that takes many years to resolve.

In telling the story, Ruth Sims doesn't shirk her Victorian responsibilities. She meticulously and in a most interesting way takes time to tell the back stories of each of the main characters. By the time Kit and Nick meet, readers already know of Kit's past life, of the death of his brother at his father's hands, of his mother's abandonement of him and his brother and their abusive father, and how Kit comes to be "adopted" by his rich benefactor. Readers already know of Nick's back-story as well, and of his first experience with another boy in his village, how it both awakened him to that side of himself, as well as frightened him of the damnation in it if he ever followed through with such feelings.

Further, Nick's religious background causes him the deepest pain in loving Kit. "He loved Kit in the way God meant him to love a woman. It was as simple and as soul-damning as that." While this problem should have been enough to doom their relationship, Kit has demons of his own, never able to shake the nightmares of his father's abuse, nor of the night he left him for dead. "The old man wrestled with him. Seized his hand. Forced it down upon ... Michael's rotting flesh ... His hands sank into soft eyes, into putrefying brain."

But like any good Victorian novel, these problems are not enough to keep Kit and Nick from a deep love for each other. Nor is a whole host of plot twists, including marriage, time, and distance. It is these plot twists, which I won't reveal, that make this a proper Victorian read. And Sims writes with authority of the times in which the book is set. From the drawing rooms of high-society England in the latter part of the 19th Century, to the days in New York City when the Trusts owned all the theatres, or controlled them so thoroughly that a play did not get a billing unless it was approved by the trust. There is also a convincing description of Circus life, and that of life "out West" in America of the 19th Century.

And yet, Kit and Nick persevere through numerous reversals of fortune, years of estrangement, entanglements, and madness in a "snake pit" even Joan Crawford would find disheartening. Those who enjoy historical fiction and Victorian novels, especially, will become enthralled with The Phoenix. Sims fulfills the implied promise an author makes to readers to bring all the subplots together in a logical and satisfying resolution at the end. The main characters and supporting cast are fully developed and ones readers will believe; and like any good Victorian novel, the villain is one who can be booed and hissed off stage, without being melodramatic.
-Ronald L. Donaghe, author of The Early Journals of Will Barnett

The Phoenix easily gives Romeo and Juliet a run for it's money! I am a huge fan of Shakespeare, as is the author if her (Kit's!) enthusiasm within the story is any indication. Yet, Sims' forbidden love between two men is more poignant. It resonates through our society, where such love is attacked as strongly now as it was when this story was set.

I will not rehash the plot, as other reviewers have already done so. But, I will say Ruth Sims is an exceptional writer whose work should not be missed. If you are looking for erotica, or M/M romance, this may not be for you. There is sex, but it's not explicit. And, Phoenix does not have the contrived "happily ever after" ending that many romances have (which I also enjoy, and am not knocking here). If you ARE looking for a deeply felt, well-written novel of true love, then buy this book now. Nico and Kit love each other, but their lives, society, and their own insecurities get in the way time and again. Until, finally, they realize that one simply cannot live without the other. While our two heroes do end up together, it is only after much loss and pain, just as in real life. A bittersweet ending, but still sweet.

This novel should be enjoyed by historical fiction fans, as well as M/M fiction fans. Even those who do not agree with the M/M lifestyle can appreciate the magic in the story and Sims' prose. The reviewer who quoted Kit, forgot one line (or it has changed in this revised edition):

Without the sanction of Sociey
Without the sanction of the Church
Without the sanction of God,
Without the sanction even of yourself
I love you.

Obviously, these words have touched a lot of people (me included). How else to explain so many reviewers quoting them here? And, the cover art is beautiful.

As someone who is usually immersed in modernist literature (you know, Joyce, Woolf, Proust, the kinda stuff that isn't particularly enjoyable or even necessarily completely comprehensible but that the literary intelligencia has told us we ALL have to read, and call me a masochist, because I DO like reading that stuff), I found this book to be a breath of fresh, pre-modernist air. And in no way do I use the term "pre-modernist" pejoratively, or to imply that the novel is in any way obvious or dumbed down. By "pre-modernist" I mean that it's a throwback, of sorts, to the fiction of Dickens, Austen and Hardy, when things like character and plot still meant something. I literally could not put this book down; its characters are charismatic and multifaceted, its plot twists intricate and unpredictable. The author has a fine sense of time and place, and an even finer ability to delve into the souls of characters who (going by the author's background) might as well have lived in a parallel universe--the sign of an author who possesses both a rich, free-flowing imagination and a profound, generous humanity. Either that or she's really a gay man trapped in a heterosexual grandmother's body. Five stars out of five.

Ruth Sims' novel, "The Phoenix", begins in 1882 London.

"But he's coming today, Jack. I know he is." Jack Roarke and his twin, Michael, dreaded their abusive father's homecoming. Shortly after Tom Roarke's return from the sea, the boys' uncaring mother had enough of her husband's beatings and left home, abandoning her sons. As Jack later states, "My father was a demon and my mother was a Whitechapel whore." Money was scarce and the thirteen year old boys were frequently hungry. Escaping his father for awhile, Jack wandered the city streets. He noticed a theater and went inside. Fascinated, he watched a rehearsal. Lizbet, the theater owner, took an instant liking to the bruised, but beautiful blonde boy. She taught Jack to read, to speak proper English-his cockney accent was gone. Jack did odd jobs around the theater and acted in small roles.

After a horrifying experience at home, involving his father, Lizbet took Jack away to St. Denys Hill, a country estate owned by her cousin, Xavier St. Denys. A wealthy entrepreneur and theater owner, St. Denys eventually adopted the boy. Jack's name was changed to Christopher, later affectionately shortened to Kit. Under St. Denys' tutelage, Kit grew to be an educated, cultured young man-and a talented actor. Kit was deeply saddened when his step-father died. He truly loved Xavier. As the only heir, Kit inherited St. Denys' sizeable fortune. With the inheritance, Kit started his own repertory company.

"The phoenix destroys itself in fire of its own making, then gives birth to itself again, endlessly." Like the phoenix, Jack Roarke, street urchin, was reborn as Kit St. Denys, the famous and respected stage actor.

"Four years before Jack Roarke was brought howling in protest into his squalid world, a boy was born to a self-taught physician and his wife, in a village lying on a slope of the Cotswolds." Nicholas Stuart's family was staunchly religious. Nick had to attended interminable three hour church services. Beyond boredom in church, Nick day-dreamed that he, "...ran barefoot in the thick green grass, or pranced with abandon in the rain, his head thrown back to catch raindrops on his tongue."

Nick's devout father was both doctor and veterinarian to the residents of the area. From the age of nine, Nick was groomed to take his father's place. As Nick matured, he realized he wanted to attend medical school to learn modern treatment methods. He didn't want to be stuck in the country his entire life. Over his father's objections, and with his mother's covert help, Nick went to medical school. After graduation, he opened a clinic for London's impoverished citizens.

One night, a group of his classmates insisted Nick accompany them to see a production of Hamlet at the Xavier Theater. Nick couldn't take his eyes off the play's star, Kit. Nick returned night after night, using dinner money to buy tickets, spellbound by Kit's portrayal of Hamlet. At the end of one performance, Kit injured his arm on a prop. The call for a doctor was answered by Nick. Kit was instantly attracted to handsome, blue-eyed Nick Stuart. They became lovers.

For a year Kit and Nick led peaceful, happy lives, but Kit's free and easy worldly ways frequently clashed with Nick's basic religious ideals. Nick was frequently left with doubts...he feared God's disapproval of his love for Kit.

Kit suffered from terrible nightmares, always seeing his evil father coming to beat him...or worse. When Kit was with a man for the night, the nightmares weren't so bad. He felt safer when he was held, just as he and Michael held each other as children, to comfort each other in the face of their father's fury. Nick the Puritan, didn't understand Kit's promiscuous past. He accused him of sleeping with half the men in England. "Half Nico? Only half? My God, how did that happen?" Nick replied, "You bypassed the ugly, the insane, and the dead!"

"The Phoenix" encompasses years and spans two continents, as the lovers' paths providentially cross, time and time again. Never predictable, Ruth Sims smoothly guides the plot through unforeseen events as the lives of Kit St. Denys and Nick Stuart come together. During one of their sojourns, Kit gave Nick a rare book of Shakespearian sonnets. On the flyleaf Kit inscribed:

Without the sanction of Society,
Without the sanction of the Church,
Without the sanction of God,
I love you.

Sims' characters' come to life on the pages of "The Phoenix". Kit, Nick, and supporting characters are believable, indeed loveable, and true to the time they lived in. The author researched the era well. I found myself living in the story, seeing it unfold through Kit's and Nick's eyes. I was on the Brooklyn Bridge, "...marveling at the mighty grace of the twisted steel cables of the "Eighth Wonder of the World."" Posh theaters in London and New York, and behind-the-scenes theater happenings came to life, as did the squalor of the slums of turn-of-the-century London and New York.

Ruth Sims is a natural wordsmith. Sentences such as, "The clanging bells of ambulances sharpened the afternoon into a thousand knives." ...are liberally peppered throughout "The Phoenix," Sims' first novel is a bona fide page turner. Just as Kit and Nick's lives seem to once again settle down, a horror from the past appears, and threatens to destroy them. I literally gave up any semblance of social life to find out what would ultimately become of Kit and Nick. Without a doubt, "The Phoenix" is a solid five star read.

Traditionally, historical love stories are set against a backdrop of war or political intrigue (think
"Gone With the Wind" or any of Mary Renault's many epic novels). As I'm more interested in culture than politics, I've never been much of a fan of this literary genre. That's why it was with surprise and delight that I discovered Ruth Sims's "The Phoenix." This is a sweeping historical romance that plays out against the theatrical goings on of nineteenth century London and New York. A veritable feast for the true culture maven.

The book's main story concerns the love affair between Kit St. Denys (né Jack O'Rourke), a bright light on London's theatre scene, and Nick Stuart, a goodhearted doctor running a small clinic on the wrong side of town. The reader watches each man painfully wrestle with the demons of his tormented past, Kit as the son of an abusive, alcoholic father and Nick the son of a fanatically religious small town doctor. Acknowledging their forbidden love for one another is only one of the many complications that threaten their happiness. They must also contend with the law, professional triumphs, financial setbacks, long separations, tumultuous relationships, personal loss, even a bout of insanity.

The novel, told in a compulsively readable, straightforward narrative style, is generously populated with engaging, believable characters - some clever inventions, others real life denizens of the nineteenth century theatre scene. I found Sims's detailed depiction of the Theatre Trust, a group that had a stranglehold on the fin de siecle New York theatre world, as particularly fascinating, in light of the parallels one can certainly find between it and the twenty-first century's media conglomerates that all but control our modern airwaves. As they say, the more things change...

This is a book that's difficult to put down. It's informative, romantic, (tastefully) sexy and just rollicking great fun. Plus it has enough twists, traumas and surprises to keep even the most jaded reader on the edge of his seat. The only fault I can find is that some of the book's many characters were not given enough face time nor were several of the secondary relationships fleshed out to my satisfaction. For example, after the death of Nick's fanatical father, he is reunited with his mother from whom he was forcibly estranged. We are only given a brief glimpse into her new life as a widow in London and her renewed relationship with her son before the story's focus shifts back to the uncertain fate of the romance between Kit and Nick. But this complaint is only a testament to my interest in everyone and everything in the story. All the characters and their lives held me in complete thrall.

Summer's coming, folks. Definitely make room for "The Phoenix" in your beach tote this year.

There are gay novels. There are fast-reading, entertaining novels. There are historical novels. There are socially relevant novels. Not very often do they all meet in one book, as they have in this one.

The story opens with Jack, an abused fourteen-year-old Victorian London pickpocket with old and bitter eyes. He barely escapes the slums with his life and it takes a knife in his father's chest to get him away. Eventually he re-creates himself as an actor, captivates the theatre world and everyone who sees him, both men and women, and against his will falls in love with Nick, a God-tormented doctor. I don't want to be a spoiler so I won't give away the intricate plot except to say there are blind corners and shocking events. Even the supporting characters are believable and unforgettable. I adored Nick and wanted to slap Kit silly sometimes. Among the supporting cast I will never forget Nick's wife Bronwyn, or Rama and her crazy hats and Francis and his "Falstaffian girth" and the devoted love they both had for Kit.

One thing I especially liked about the book was the way the author got into the heads, to some degree, of characters other than the protagonists. That's one thing I look for in a novel (which is why, I suppose, first person novels bore me to death.)

I very much hope there are many more books from Ruth Sims, who is skilled and imaginative. Most of all I hope there is a sequel to The Phoenix.

There are so many layers in this book that the plot is like a mountain road--you can't tell what's around the bend. The characters, even the minor ones, are beautifully done and sympathetic. Except the abusive father, of course, and he's despicable. There is humor I didn't expect, and places where I cried. There's gay sex but it's not overdone and more is left to the imagination than is spelled out, and I like that. The theatre history is really interesting, and the reader knows there was a lot of research involved but it isn't intrusive and doesn't overwhelm the story. If this book is pigeonholed as being only for gay men that will be a shame. It's truly a genre-crossing story that will appeal to gay men, yes, but also any open-minded person who loves an exciting story and wonderful characters. I read a lot of books. I haven't read many that I would give 5 stars to. This is one of them.