Customer Reviews

The Queen is Dead : A Story of Jarheads, Eggheads, Serial Killers and Bad Sex

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Hilarious and gripping This book is just superb. Two gay dissidents with a shared lust for marines open a transatlantic correspondence revealing marvellous, trivial and disturbing details of their lives. London lad Simpson, best known for his book Anti-Gay, is his usual witty, perceptive self and finds in Seattle based Zeeland not just a soul-mate but an effective foil for his dry commentary. Quite why a pair of misanthropic, cynical armchair philosophers writing about transsexuals, military men's bottoms and cats should make for worthwhile reading is a mystery, but it does. For their own sakes, these writers should get out more. But that wouldn't make for half as interesting a book.

If the unexamined life is meaningless, then the over-examined life is a pain in the "arse". This is not a frivolous, "let me tell you how I got laid last night" type of book. Rather, it is an often lyrical, but never sentimental look at the need to bond, and the just as equally strong impulse to be alone. In the end, one senses that the two writers recognize that all enduring relationships are "the union fo two solitudes" and the only choice is whether such unions are ultimately informed with kindness or bitterness. One wishes that an ocean and a continent did not keep these two soulmates apart.

I read the rave reviews in the newspapers but was a bit sceptical - the title doesn't exactly fill you with enthusiasm. Then some friends recommended it and I finally got around to buying a copy. In fact, it turned out to be one of the best books I've ever read - and I read it almost in one sitting, despite it being quite a thick volume (complete with fascinating snapshots). It's extremely funny, but isn't 'light' (i.e. vacuous) in the way that most 'funny' books are. In fact, it's very moving and very wise and recklessly honest. True, the humour is black humour - but then, that's the best and possibly the only kind.

Zeeland and Simpson don't deny they blanketed this collaboration with dark humor, and the title is pretty indicative of what's inside. And the book cover ain't too bad! But the book, certainly original and not a gay manuscript that can be pigeon-holed into any single category like how to find the love of your life or how to put the fireworks back into sex with the same guy, its apparent purpose is to throw caution to the wind about any real hope for romance and a continuing relationship and how the insecure among us usually sabotage a promising lead. And Zeeland and Simpson certainly hit a chord of realism as they pretty much lay out where an inordinate number gay sexual encounters and relationships lead if they're caught up in the promiscuous subculture of the gay lifestyle, the neuroses and fears of guys looking for more than a night of groaning and sweating and an annoying preoccupation with how we perform in bed (or an SU van). The authors don't offer us much hope in the way of telling us how to step over the pitfalls on the road toward a gay happily-ever-after, but they do warn us of what we can expect. Dark humor, certainly, and it'll offer great reading for the gay guy not looking for how to find a lifelong lover or reignite a relationship gone stale. If you're looking for that, this book will probably depress you into heterosexualism.