My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Download this book here. I digitized it!
Five stars, it's not The Grapes of Wrath but for gay pulp subtitled "A Pleasure Reader" it's as good as it can get.
I first heard of this book when it appeared in Pulp Friction: Uncovering the Golden Age of Gay Male Pulps with a short chapter. The premise is the world's water supply has been infected with a drug that makes everyone gay, which in 1969 caused more consternation than now.
The book starts off with some quick baton passing, one characters dumps his girlfriend, next chapter is from the perspective of the girlfriend, she meets a travelling salesman, next chapter is from his perspective, etc. Eventually we meet a pair of CIA special agents assigned to the case and with them we stay.
The problem with later gay pulp is they're really unreadable as books due to the sex scenes on every third page, but the ones published in the 1960's are usually less saturated as is this one. Sex scenes are brushed over except for two and both are welcome, well-written and erotic.
Some of the pulpy aspects of the book ratcheted up the plot, making it perhaps less relatable to today's audience. Why were all the suddenly gay people all screwing in the streets, for example. Still it was cute, the story went somewhere, the characters were likable, all great pulpy fun, I'm glad I read it.
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