Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Never a Dull Moment!, June 30, 2009
Mr. Patterson defines his characters so well, we feel we know them personally. Phillip Flaxen was the Golden Boy of his job as an Internet Stripper who made dates on the side. This job barely kept him in lunch money and he was lucky to eat once a day! Then he meets a fascinating older man who truly loves him and he helps change Phillip's lifestyle. He acquires a decent job that pays better and he loves working with rare books. His ex-roommate, his friend "Sprakie" who took him in during the worst time of his life is quite the character too. His favorite phrase, "Jesus Marie", is enough to drive his friends up the wall. The who-dunnit that winds its way throughout the story is captivating, and we never know who the culprit is until the very end. There's never a dull moment in this book! Good job, Mr. Patterson. Herman Melville and Charles Dickens would be proud.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Literary Fiction for the Internet Age, January 24, 2009
Emotionally distraught after finding male pornography in her son's room, Philip Flaxen's mother shares her discovery with her husband. Ashamed and disgusted with this revelation, Philip's father disowns his son, kicks him out of his only home, and warns him to never return. Philip turns to his only friend, Robert Spraque - "Sprakie" - who takes him into his apartment. Sprakie introduces him to the seedy world of adult internet sites where Philip can get work by "baring it all" in order to stay off the streets.
Online, Philip encounters a "customer" different from his normal patrons - this client is well educated, articulate, and thoughtful. Intrigued, Philip breaks all the rules to meet this man face to face in hopes of kindling a romance. As it turns out, Philip's admirer is an extremely successful though considerable older author. A May-December romance ensues yet both men struggle with their very different backgrounds and social strata. Each consider whether they should turn idolater or leave love behind. Meanwhile, a series of cold blooded murders involving Philip's acquaintances occur and neither Philip nor his lover realize that their choice for love is also a life or death decision.
In "Turning Idolater", Edward C Patterson has create a novel best described as contemporary literary fiction. Inspired and anchored by Melville's "Moby Dick", Patterson explores the social mores impacting two men drawn to one another yet kept from complete commitment due to the fabric of their very different backgrounds and colliding realities.
Through Patterson's lyrical prose and keen understanding of the human condition, he creates characters so real I felt as if I was reading a memoir. Frequent reference to literary classics and intricate and loving descriptions of priceless book restoration invite the reader into a contemporary equivalent of a Jane Austen novel. Fans of Patterson's work will certainly enjoy Turning Idolater.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A BOUNTIFUL CATCH, October 6, 2008
"TURNING IDOLATER" by Edward C. Patterson is a bountiful catch. The author can turn a phrase and is ever ready to give the reader those perfect details that put one right in the scene. Take the opening, for example, where we find our protagonist, Philip Flaxen, in the tub caring for the tool of his trade, just as... "Diggers sharpen pickaxes and none but a preacher can fill the fount with consecrated drink." But Philip is not a man of the cloth nor a blue collar worker. In his trade, Philip wears no collar and more often than not, no clothes at all. Well, yes, our Philip is a gay Internet stripper. This, by itself, for the uninitiated like me to get a peek into the world of gay Internet porn, would be story enough. But if you've read any of the writer's other works you know that he can thicken a plot and cook up a stew like few others. A fishy stew it is, in the case of "TURNING IDOLATER."
As we rub-a-dub in the tub with the Flaxen One, there is our very first surprise: Philip is a reader. And what we discover in his hands, after dutifully lathering and diligently honing the tool of his trade, is not just any boy-gets-boy dime-store romance, but we watch in wonder as he dives into a whale of a story. He's reading no less than Herman Melville's masterpiece, "Moby Dick." The author soon lets us in on the fact that this is a very newly discovered pleasure for our young protagonist. The gift of this rare, first edition book has caused him to stretch his mind. Although, this is Philip's first immersion into the depth of the literary arts, he takes to it like a fish to water. But like Ishmael, he doesn't realize that there's been a sea change and that this voyage at sea he thinks he's signed up for becomes a swim for his life. Because out there at sea--now you see him, now you don't--is a giant whale that's about to pull him and Ahab down from the Pequod into the briny deep.
"TURNING IDOLATOR" is a wonderful interweaving of Melville and Patterson. And just when you think that Patterson left Melville somewhere moored at a dry dock, he brings him right back, and pulls you along into his roiling sea of words. At times I was lost as the writer threw out a red herring here or there. And there were times when I wished for a dictionary to navigate my way through all the colorful, but to me unknown, words and names of the gay world, such as twink, hoohoo, pacific trick, or Kinzie 6. (Perhaps an idea for a new book?)
In "TURNING IDOLATOR" The writer draws his characters lovingly. Philip, on this, his most important voyage of self-realization, is filled with the energy of the very young. The author gives him an infectious lust for life and adventure as he dives into this fresh sea with the vigor of a junior sailor. You'll cringe as this innocent, unable to trust his own perceptions, blunders and blusters into this new world of seasoned old salts, trying on new words to fit his new clothes, misspeaking, misunderstanding, and at times--like a fish out of water wishing to return to the murk from which he came--spouting the phrases of his Internet porn past. Thomas is imbued with such decency and dignity; everyone should have a friend like him. And I absolutely adored Sprakie as he dances and prances, twitters and struts his abundance of queenly feathers. To watch him walk the gauntlet, a Provincetown annual gay ritual, is a joy to behold.
Reading "TURNING IDOLATOR" is listening along with Philip to... "a song he knew, the one beckoning him to coast over the waves and scoot across the pristine sea." Even as you fear that the Flaxen One is lost in the vast ocean of his own confusion ... well, if you've read "Moby Dick," you know that "The Rachel" is on her way.
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