Borna and Nole – in Vogue

August 23, 2015

Well, once again the gazillion-page (actually only 832-page) September Vogue is out, and, once again, the big issue for me is not the cover or the fashion but whom editrix Anna Wintour has anointed among male tennis players for the ritual dressing (and undressing).

This year, tennis-crazed Anna, the sly minx, is offering a kind of two-for-one and her own version of doubles. In the “People Are Talking About” section, rising star and teen dream Borna “Identity” Ćorić looks like he’s headed off to Harvard, standing at the net in a gray and white Canali sweater with gray J. Crew sweats. Coach Brad Gilbert has given the 18-year-old Croat the nickname but the question is, “Whose identity?” ...

Summer reading – tennis’ (and humanity’s) ‘Terrible Splendor’

August 14, 2015

Tennis is a game of doubles. In the Hitchcock thriller “Strangers on a Train,” the tennis star must confront and overcome his murderous doppelgänger. In Woody Allen’s “Match Point,” the tennis pro is his murderous doppelgänger.

In Nijinsky’s ballet “Jeux,” the male tennis player is involved with two women.

Marshall Jon Fisher’s juicy 2009 book “A Terrible Splendor” (Three Rivers Press) offers a very different pas de trios. ...

Just a reminder

July 30, 2015

On Aug. 1, I'll be at The DCCenter for the LGBT Community's OutWrite Book Festival with my novel "Water Music" -- about the loves and rivalries among four gay athletes. I'll sign some books, do a reading (at 3:25 p.m.) and share news about "The Penalty for Holding," the second book in my series "The Games Men Play." If you're in Washington D.C., I'd love to see you at The Reeves Center 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The event is free to attend. For more, click on to http://thedccenter.org/outwritedc/exhibitors.html.

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More adventures in publishing

July 17, 2015

On Aug. 1, I'll be at The DCCenter for the LGBT Community's OutWrite Book Festival with my novel "Water Music" - about the loves and rivalries among four gay athletes. I'll sign some books, do a reading (at 3:25 p.m.) and share news about "The Penalty for Holding," the second book in my series "The Games Men Play." If you're in Washington D.C., I'd love to see you at The Reeves Center 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The event is free to attend. For more, click on to http://thedccenter.org/outwritedc/exhibitors.html.

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Warrior women

July 14, 2015

Stanford research scholar Adrienne Mayor – a National Book Award finalist for “The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy” – has a new book out, “The Amazons: Lives & Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World” (Princeton University Press, 519 pages, $29.95).

It blows the lid off the myth of the one-breasted she-males who kidnapped men for sex, abandoning any resulting male offspring, to paint a portrait of those Eurasian women who once and still live like men. ...

Sail away, sail away, sail away – ‘The Stylish Life: Yachting”

July 7, 2015

In my debut novel “Water Music,” the four gay athletes at its core explore their relationships during a vacation on Mykonos, the home of tennis player Alex Vyranos.

Alex is the son of a man who has made a fortune working for an Onassis-style shipping tycoon. At one point, Spyros Vyranos lends his son a company yacht, the Semiramide, to pilot his three friends to the neighboring isle of Delos, birthplace of Apollo. Spyros has warned Alex that the Semiramide is not a toy. He doesn’t want him drinking and sailing He doesn’t want the four winding up on TMZ.

Of course not, papa, Alex remembers telling him as he takes a swig of Dom Perignon at the wheel of the Semiramide, feeling all the power, freedom and escape that a yacht has to offer. ...

Memo to David Brooks: Don’t quit your day job

July 1, 2015

Boy, the Public Editor’s column in the June 28 edition of The New York Times really struck a chord with me. The column by Margaret Sullivan wondered if both The Times and its readers are served by reporters who write books, people like columnist and PBS commentator David Brooks, whose latest work, “The Road to Character,” has been the subject of several columns that linked to his website. Readers complained not only about his shilling for his book but about errors in the book that have since been corrected.

While I haven’t read the book, I thought the premise of related columns – that the individual needs to be subjugated to the good of the community – was essentially illogical and unrealistic. ...