Customer Reviews

The Trouble Boy

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The novel is a fast read with moments of fun, but the author seems unable to create a memorable character. Toby neds a lawyer at one point, but worries he can't afford one, even though his parents pay his rent in Manhattan and his mother just sold her company for $200 million. Huh? Many moments like this make the novel seem rushed.

Alos, why does this novel have to be shelved in the gay section? It seemed pretty mainstream to me. I hate this hyper-classification.

Looking only at the inside flap of the book (come on, we're gay, we do it) it's hard to imagine that a strikingly handsome author of Dolby descent would be able to write a novel about being (or perceiving oneself as being) .. well, average, insecure and confused as to one's place in the world.

Actually READING the book, though, you find that his main character is all of those things. Cute and young enough to possibly make up for not being TOTALLY hot, Toby, the main character, seems to do nothing but screw up opportunities to 'elevate' himself to the A-list in a snotty, screwed-up New York of the new millenium.

The beauty of this book, though, is that like Sex & the City and Less than Zero - two books this one has been likened to - it has nothing to do with New York or snotty A-lister's or even young almost-hot men.. rather, it's a story about a person coming of age in a time where everything seems possible, everything seems desirable. His Toby, however, is not unlike the rest of us: he wants to be successful, he wants to find love, and he wants to maintain his sense of self but has to do so in spite of horrible bosses, frenemies (the one Sex and the City reference that fits - the episode where friends act like enemies) and a bank account hovering just above zero.

The approachability and enjoyability of this novel is not based on the fact that it's glitzy or set in New York or filled with drama and scandal - that has been done, to varying levels of success, by other authors. What made this book so enjoyable was the fact that the main character was real, honest about his vanities and shortcomings, and in the end decided that being a good person and doing the right thing for his friends, family and self, brought him the happiness that everything else had not.

(Side note: for those of you who read and enjoyed Bart Yates' "Leave Myself Behind," the main character in this book reminds me of a grown up "Noah" - and the fact that Mr. Yates endorses the book on the dust cover should persuade you to read the book!)

The best part of this book is the inside back dust jacket where there is a really hot picture of the author. (Unfortunately, his website is pretty bare bones with no additional hot pics.) As for the novel, it's good but not great. There's just not much substance to the story. A plus is that the book is free of the continuity mistakes, typos and grammatical errors frequently found in books of this genre, as it was published by a professional house. (The fact that I'm even making this comment relates back to the minimalist substance of the story.) But it is a first novel and we can hope that Tom Dolby will grow and grow. The potential is certainly there.

I worry whenever a main character in a book is compared to Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye. This often means the book will be the angsty stream of consciousness philosophy of a person who thinks they are more complex than they really are. Toby (probably an alter ego for the author TOm dolBY), Trouble Boy was quite a bit more fun and less pretentious than that but the book did fall short in a couple of places for me.

I got the book mainly because the main character was my age an it was NOT a coming out novel. It is nice to encounter a story where the main character has moved beyond that overused stage of life. Toby is easy to relate to for many gay 20-somethings, he's in the scene but not obsessed with it, he has a group of friends who can be as challenging as they can be supportive, he's a little shallow (I think most guys are to some degree no matter how much we might protest). There were many scenes with which I could immediately relate. However, at times, it was a little hard to feel sympathy for a Yale graduate at 22 living on his own in Manhattan, in an apartment paid for by his affluent parents, who can afford to go out drinking nearly every night of the week. When he says he probably wouldn't have dated a guy if he knew he worked in retail it put me off a bit.

In its favor there are many fun chapters especially those revolving around the foppery of the social elite and the book is quite the page turner; flaws aside I couldn't put it down until I was finished.

Just finished Tom's book and I have to say it was very enjoyable. It's packed with vivid images that brought sights, sounds and smells to me during the read. I loved how he spun a tale that stayed true to its theme throughout - it flowed very well. What I enjoyed the most was how he wrapped everything at the end. Unlike some books, I felt it allowed me to create my own illusions for what the future held for Toby and completely satisfied with the ending. I commend Tom for a flawless debut.

Don't waste your time on this trite that was probably (hopefully) written with 14 year olds in mind. I have to say I did get a laugh from the fact there were group discussion questions at the end of the book. Did anyone with some level of intelligence find anything deep enough to ponder and think about in this book?

Anyone who is interested in the trials of urban, hip, twenty-something gay men, is going to find a lot to like in Tom Dolby's debut novel, the Trouble Boy. The main protagonists live in a world of club kids, drag queens, leather daddies, fashion victims, gorgeous college kids who could belong in a Bruce Webber photograph, and personalities who don't fit into any category at all - all of them wed together in a society of mutual admiration. Smart, intuitive, and sexy, the novel introduces us to the immensely likeable Toby Griffin as he looks for success in a Manhattan that has become a giant celebrity infested playground, "where nothing holds any meaning without a bold-faced name attached."

The Trouble Boy has a tight little knot of a plot combining sex, gossip, and hedonism. And the task of untying that knot falls to Toby, the novel's first person narrator. When we first meet him Toby, is at a Manhattan party where "people don't talk to anyone they don't know already" where he meets Jamie Weissman who becomes his best friend and partner in crime. Toby and Jamie, together with Toby's co-worker Donovan, take an indelible delight, in carousing, drinking, cruising boys, and occasionally snorting lines of coke. Coming from a world of privilege ? his father is an investment banker and his mother is fashion designer in San Francisco - Toby lands into hothouse environment of New York where he is desperate to meet new people. He becomes the boy "in trouble" when partying and having a good time conflicts with his dreams of becoming a famous screenwriter.

Toby has been working on a screenplay called Breeders, a kind of science fiction satire on the world of homophobia. Smart and sensitive, Toby knows he's got talent and that his job is to find a place in the world, but the finding isn?t easy. He also knows what he wants but it?s the getting there that's the hard part, "not the act itself, but the before, the approach." The men he meets are dishonest and flaky; he can't get his screenplay optioned, Donovan, with whom he has a crush on doesn?t want him, and his job working as a night-club editor for CityStyle ? a website about New York's nightlife and fashion goes belly up, when the company who owns the site withdraws their investment.

Toby begins not to care anymore about what is right and wrong, and what is appropriate or not - he just wants to escape. Frustration becomes depression and depression leads to more drinking, and faced with a succession of one-night stands Toby begins to have "an emptiness gnawing at his gut." He wants something more meaningful than just being used as a sex object ? more than a "box of condoms, sweaty sheets, or a crumpled up phone number." Toby wants to be remembered.

Slowly the novel turns on his troubled association with Ariana Richards, the publicist for Hollywood bombshell Jordan Gardner, and Cameron Cole, president of an independent gay film company where Toby lands a job. When Jordan, addled with drugs and alcohol, causes a terrible accident outside a club one night, Toby is forced to rethink his priorities, and he realizes that fame and fortune in the entertainment world come at a terrible price.

Dolby may well have started to give us a story about self-indulgence, excess and intemperance, but what he has actually given us is a story about love, sexual honesty and the trials they entail. Dolby constantly demands our attention by instilling his embattled hero with a quirky sense of humour, an overriding humanity and a prevailing tenderness. That he can create such a fully rounded character in the process, and in the end forge a more enlightened way of living for Toby, shows his skill as a storyteller, and makes The Trouble Boy an enormous achievement and an absolute delight to read. Mike Leonard June 04.

This book is deceptive. Early on there's a bit of name dropping. Designer names (Jimmy Choo?). Celebrity names (Rupert Everett? Rufus Wainwright?) - making it pretty easy to imagine that this is going to be just another "fabulous, frothy romp through the glittering world of gay New York." The queer version of chick-lit, if you will. "(Homo)Sex in the City." But not so. This tale of a recent Yale grad and aspiring writer trying to make his mark in the big city is actually a quite thoughtful and charming coming of age story. Sort of a gay bildungsroman for the new Millennium.

Toby Griffin, the protagonist, is a complex and fully realized character, a classic unreliable narrator who still manages to win the reader's sympathies despite his frequent misinterpretations, self-delusions and occasional blunders. Dolby has created a young man who we root for and, ultimately, one that we admire.

The book is told in first person narrative, with Toby relating his own story, except for Chapter Three, which, in a rather odd literary device, is told in third person. The reason given is that this Toby, the one who endures this particular, rather unsettling, experience, seemed like "...another person, another Toby Griffin." Although not problematic as such, this departure would have been even more effective if Dolby had chosen to use it again during (or immediately after) the book's decisive episode, a car accident that marks the turning point in Toby's fortunes and, more importantly, the point at which he must choose between right and wrong. It would have been the ideal way to illustrate how people can divorce themselves from poor or harmful choices in order to feel free of guilt. But this is a quibble on my part.

I enjoyed "The Trouble Boy" enormously. I think it truly has something for everyone. A bit of glamour. A few thinly disguised New York celebrity types that you'll almost, but not quite, recognize. A little sex. A little romance. A fair amount of wit and a whole lot of heart.

Toby Griffin is 22 and lives in NY. He wantst to get a screenplay published and made into a movie but has no luck. He has various jobs with online magazines and spends most of his nights out with his friends getting drunk, meeting guys and immediately falling in love. Naturally none of this relationships work. Then a horrific disaster happens with him and his friends and Toby startsto unravel.

There's nothing really new or original here. I've seen (and read) stories like this before. However the characters are engaging, the situations realistic and I never wanted to put this down. Dolby is a very good writer with a good ear for dialogue particularly. The books moves quickly and is easy to read without being simplistic. My only complaint (and this is a small one) is that I didn't believe the happy ending at all...but it does work. Worth reading especially for younger gay men. It captures just what it's like to be young, gay and in a big city.

The Trouble Boy just barely rates 3 stars, mainly because it's cohesive through the end. The novel fell short of the "searing", "witty" or "uproariously funny" promises of the jacket cover. Yes, there were good moments, but about chapter 3 or so I started asking myself, what's wrong here? The elements are there, but...ever hear a song that you almost like, but something was just, missing? By novel's end I figured out the problem: Mr. Dolby needs lessons in lyricism. I didn't like Toby (selfish, petty, etc), but I've thoroughly enjoyed a novel with a protagonist I hated before, that wasn't the problem. If Trouble Boy is the best Dolby can do, we won't be seeing much more from him. (The outstanding Bart Yates' too kind endorsement was spot on: the character IS interesting, but Yates didn't gush how great a writer Dolby is. Boy oh boy, Yates could teach Dolby a thing or 2 about lyricism)