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Object of Desire
by William J. Mann
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$24.00 |
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$17.28 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. |
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$6.72 (28%) |
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Hardcover
Publisher: Kensington
ISBN13: 9780758213778
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
-It-s always been golden for you, Danny. You-ve always been the golden boy.-Danny Fortunato seemed to have it all. He was cute, funny, sexy, smart-the hottest go-go boy in West Hollywood. When he danced on stage, all eyes were upon him and all men desired him. But something always kept Danny from ever really believing he was the golden boy that others said he was...a secret that he'd carried with him ever since he was a teenager. Twenty years later, living in Palm Springs, Danny is celebrating his 41st birthday-although -celebrating- might not be the right word for how he feels about his life today. To the outside world, he's still golden: he still has his looks, and he still loves Frank, his boyfriend of nearly two decades. But something is missing in his life. Passion. Romance. Adventure. The same something that's been missing ever since that day when he turned fourteen, when his sister Becky disappeared and his whole world flipped upside-down. Now into Danny's life walks a gorgeous young bartender named Kelly, who becomes for Danny an obsession, an object of desire and fascination. But Kelly's indifference to this onetime golden boy only confirms what Danny secretly believes: that he-s -vanishing- into thin air-like his sister, so long ago. As he reflects on his angst-ridden childhood-the shattering of his family, the sex and drugs of his youth as one of L.A.-s most coveted boy toys-Danny begins to recognize certain patterns. Somewhere along the way, he gave up on his dreams-not only of becoming an actor, but his very lust for life. And yet-all that-s about to change, when a surprising, agonizing connection with Kelly sends Danny on a soul-searching quest to reclaim the things he has loved and lost. Filled with unforgettable warmth, incorrigible humor, and irresistible charm, Object of Desire takes readers through three milestone eras in one man-s life-his youth in the 1970s, his days of abandon in the 1980s, and his more sober, reflective existence today-and reaffirms William J. Mann-s reputation as one of gay fiction-s major narrative powers.
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| Holds one's attention |
| Customer Rating: 2 out of 5 |
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The author does not like people much, at least he does not like his characters. A lot of petty, demeaning comments. The narrator sounded more like a gossip columnist. But this book held my attention because there were urgent story lines and threads throughout that cried out for resolution.
SPOILER - DON'T READ BELOW IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED THE BOOK...
The ending was a cop out. Sure we appreciate "ambiguity," I get plenty of it in my life, but this reader felt cheated because the most captivating thread in the story was left unresolved.
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| A Wonderful Journey of a gay man from boyhood to the present. |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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I was hooked on the first page! Easy flowing words as only William J.Mann can write. His description of Palm Springs, Frank Wilson, Danny and the other gay characters were never boring. Each character more interesting than the next.
What I loved most about this novel was the seamless transition from Danny Fortunato's past (and the tragedy that haunted him all his life) to the present and his life with his husband of 20 years.
Three titles took the reader from Danny as a child, in East Hartford, to finally leaving his home for West Hollywood and now his current life with Frank Wilson, Palm Springs. So the chapter bounced along from East Hartford and so on!
William J. Mann's style of writing is so fluid one almost forgets you are reading a story. Rather we are steeped in depth of the characters, the realistic drama, and the descriptive settings as they unfold.
Danny's object of desire is a young handsome bartender. Is it lust or love that Danny feels? A fabulous roller coaster ride of emotions backed up by love for Danny. Love is what he needs. It always comes back to love.
I read All American Boy and loved it as well. Mann's easy writing style makes the reader follow the lives of gay men and boys and makes them hope it all works out.
Highly recmmend both novels.
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| worth the wait |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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To be quite honest, I am a great fan of W.J. Mann and was not disapointed with his latest book. He definitely has a way of describing Gay life, not only the party cliché so often attached to Gay guys but life as it goes, younger or older. Sometimes sad, sometimes funny but always to the point.
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| "You just have to believe you can do it" |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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A midlife crisis can be problematic, especially for a forty one ex-exotic dancer from West Hollywood who also harbors deep insecurities about his family, his partner and his current place in life. Photographer/illustrator Danny Fortunato is well aware that isn't wearing a thong anymore, but this doesn't stop Danny quivering with an unfocused energy as he battles forces that seem to be annihilating his quiet life, especially that of the night his sister Becky disappeared twenty-seven years before, the night when everything in his world changed and the night Danny came to understand that he would never grow up to be the man he had expected to be. Now living in Palm Springs with his older partner Frank, over the years Danny has worked hard to erase the boy he had left behind in East Hartford Connecticut and the tattered and terrible memories of his family, particularly his mother Peggy as she frantically searches for her daughter while wrapping herself in an extravagant solitude while in turn Danny is forced to tag along with his mother through motorcycle bars and strip clubs, looking for Becky. Peggy had operated on the belief that Becky's return was imminent.
From Danny's childhood in East Harvard to the present, Mann covers Danny in every manifestation, reflecting a man who comes full circle, while standing on the mother side of the divide. Dreams he realizes are not enough to distance himself from the enormity of his failures except of course when he snorted that wonderful magical powder up his nose. Mann fully embeds us into Danny's life, his journey to West Hollywood where he's determined to become a famous actor but where he ultimately finds a life dancing in sleazy g*y night clubs, dressed only in a thong, up on his box swinging his slender hips to the music, on the hunt for one sexual thrill after another as he and his colleagues snort lines of coke, "believing that someday he'd be somebody."
Danny's rock is his of love of Frank, now married for 20 years, yet the last four have been a string of silent nights. All this changes on his birthday, when Danny lays eyes on a bartender while drinking one night, the man moving with a determined concentration, his hair almost black, his cheeks covered with carefully clipped dark whispers. Hoping for a chance to speak to him and to peer into his eyes, Danny can no longer deny how hungry he really is. An artist, Kelly, seemed at first to be the personification of innocent youth and Danny is on fire for him to take his staid, stale routine and turn it around, even stand it on its head. Ostensibly meeting to look at his sketches, Kelly's face "stops Danny's breath, his eyes making his heart freeze." Danny realizes that he wants to change Kelly's life, and jumpstart his future for him.
It is Kelly who ultimately challenges Danny in a way that causes him to question his life with Frank, his personal priorities and unquestioning acceptance of the steps that have bought him to this time and place. For the first time in years, through his eyes, Danny realizes his life crisis, aching for the world of sex, for love for life, and the savoring of the necessary fiction of youth. The novel is essentially about a man who comes full circle where the dreams he realizes are not enough to distance himself from the enormity of his failures. Although Danny's present day dilemmas give Object of Desire a feel of immediacy, it is the author's depiction of Danny's past that fuel much of the emotion, that of Danny's furtive attraction to Becky's boyfriend Chipper Paguni and the realization that Peggy never liked his influence on her daughter, and also that of Danny's high school affair with the flame-haired Troy, and the inevitable collapse of his family into drunkenness and failure. Danny remains haunted by the fact that he's never told his mother what he had seen the morning of Becky's disappearance. He knew that Becky was never coming back and that for the rest of his life, he would carry the blame. Although Mann portrays an array of eccentric, believable and multi-faceted characters, that complement Danny's life in both the present and the past, I'm not sure I like Danny's world, from his kind-hearted friends to the phony Palm Springs society elite, who seem content to bleed and then lead-on the like of Danny and his ilk. The novel is often over-written, each melodramatic incident piled on top of the other and in the end Danny himself remains a rather vacuous, painfully pathetic character even as he struggles to find a voice, to reconcile his past and to ultimately remain desirable. Mike Leonard July 09.
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| Trite, tedious |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
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There's little more to say. This is a book of labels, carefully noted on the clothing the characters wear, the alcohol they drink, the emotions they are reported to experience.
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