Customer Reviews

Wayfaring at Waverly in Silver Lake

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Kaye Wayfaring we first met in "Kay Wayfaring in 'Avenged'" (1985) -- like this book, a collection of linked stories centering on a Hollywood star who, in this book, has become a bit of a recluse. The style is magical, almost hallucinatory at times. However, as another review in this section will suggest, not everyone will get it. It helps to know Hollywood, of course; and McCourt has a deep sense of the entire place.

Although McCourt's sensibility is deeply gay, sexual orientation figures only slightly in this book, which, like many of McCourt's novels, is mainly preoccupied with the transitory world of opera or show biz.

McCourt has long been known as a gifted writer, and justifiably so. But if you haven't read him yet, this book is probably not the place to start.

James McCourt is one of those writers who seems to have gotten in print via connections, and the fact that he is a `gay writer'. I say this because it is the only discernible reason available given his actual writing ability. That said, I had to Google him to find out that he is a `gay writer', for, thankfully, although he has many ills as a writer, a predilection for masturbation, fellatio, and 69ing, does not infect every tale in this book, as it too often does the work of gay writers like David Leavitt. Yet, he is not a good writer, but a bad one, regardless of his sexual predilection. Is he the worst writer who's ever been published? Certainly not, and with bottom feeders like a Nikki Giovanni, Dave Eggers, and a host of other Chick Literatistas around, he's probably not even near the Bottom 100.

However, that doesn't mean that his bad writing should have found print. Wayfaring At Waverly In Silver Lake is a short story collection, inexplicably published in 2002 by Alfred A. Knopf- a publisher that used to put into print really good literature but has, as all presses, big and small, seem to have, given in to cranking out crap for its Lowest Common Denominator bottom line. The book is built around the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Anger, Envy, Gluttony, and Sloth. Certainly this is not a bad premise for a book, as many short story collections these days are centered around themes or places. The problem lies in the execution, and the fact that the stories are not really about sin. Worse, the claimed leading sins of each tale are not necessarily the ones that take center stage in each tale- for example, the tale on Gluttony has more fornication than the tale on Lust. Whether this was poor designation or McCourt's way of trying to intimate that all sin is the same I do not know. What I do know is that it does not work, nor does any single tale rise to a level of being deserving of print.