A new novel about tennis that offers an uneasy mix of fiction and reality asks the question, To what extent is fiction protected from libel?
“Trophy Son” by Douglas Brunt (alias Mr. Megan Kelly) tells the story of a fictional tennis prodigy who’s the victim of a stage parent. But at some point, it apparently veers into reality as one character, fictional trainer Bobby Hicks, accuses Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray of using performance-enhancing drugs.
Needless to say, this is all anyone’s talking about. ...
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Read MoreOne of the paradoxes of the Trump campaign and subsequent administration is a promise that may have the opposite effect of the one it intended.
When the president says he wants to “Make America Great Again” he means to return it to a time when manufacturing, mining and other white, male blue-collar jobs were king. The problem with that is that the rest of the world would also have to return to that time. ...
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Read MoreThree years ago, I took my novel “Water Music” – the first in my series “The Games Men Play” – to the New York Rainbow Book Fair and had a blast.
The ninth annual Fair – held on Saturday at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice – proved no less exhilarating. (Pic at right, by Gina Gouveia.) ...
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Read MoreYours Truly (and Humbly) is excited to be back at the Rainbow Book Fair in Manhattan Saturday, April 29. The noon to 6 p.m. event, billed as “the largest LGBT book event in America,” is always a day of thought-provoking readings and absorbing encounters with readers.
Three years ago, I had a blast at the event with “Water Music,” the first novel in my series “The Games Men Play,” about power, dominance, rivalry and jealousy. The well-received “Water Music” (Greenleaf Book Group) tells the story of four gay athletes and how their professional rivalries color their personal relationships.
Now I’m back at the Fair with “The Penalty for Holding” (Less Than Three Press, May 10), about a gay, biracial quarterback’s search for identity, acceptance, success and love amid the brutal beauty of the NFL. ...
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Read MoreThe painting shows a young black man in a coffin, his face a blur of color in the manner of Abstract Expressionist art – and violent death.
The departed, then, is not just someone who has succumbed to the ills that the flesh is heir to. Emmett Till was just 14 years old when he was lynched by two white men for flirting with the wife of one of them. “Open Casket, “ on view at the Whitney Biennial, is Dana Schutz’s 2016 painting of a mutilated Till in the open casket his mother, Mamie Till Bradley, insisted on. The work has drawn protests and condemnation from black artists and writers, who question the right of a white woman to appropriate a searing moment in black history. ...
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Read MoreReading about the dead and the wounded in the terrorist attack on London’s Westminster Bridge – from 10 nations and all walks of life – put me in mind once more of Thornton Wilder’s beloved novel “The Bridge of San Luis Rey.”
It tells the story of five people in 18th-century Peru who die while crossing a footbridge that collapses. A witness who was about to cross, a Franciscan monk named Brother Juniper, is assigned to investigate the tragedy. ...
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Read MoreA new exhibit at the Japan Society considers a moment in Edo culture (17th through early-19th century Japan) when the wakashū, or beautiful youth, held sway as companions for men and even women.
The New York Times has written about this from the viewpoint of our current transgender controversies, which makes sense since the show, through June 11, is titled “A Third Gender: Beautiful Youths in Japanese Prints.” But I’m more interested in the parallels to ancient Greece and what such practices say about morality seen through the scrim of history. ...
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