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Biographical notes for James Lear, the author of The Back Passage, Hot Valley, and The Palace of Varieties, say he was born in Singapore, expensively educated in England, and has
worked in the theater and British intelligence services. After a
misunderstanding with the authorities, the story goes, he has lived
quietly in London, devoting his time to writing and helping local
youth.
And a story it is. Novelist Rupert Smith revealed himself to be the pseudonymous Lear in an op-ed article with The Los Angeles Times
on Sunday, April 20. Unlike James Lear, Rupert Smith is a writer whose
work regularly appears in the Guardian. He is the author of several
books under his own name, including I Must Confess,
as well as a series of brilliantly funny (and explicitly erotic) gay
novels published under the name James Lear. Cleis reports brisk sales
of the Lear novels, which are category favorites on Amazon and Barnes
& Noble and have been enthusiastically reviewed.
In his
Los Angeles Times piece, Smith explains his surprise that the Lear
books outsell his general trade titles. A closer look at the economics
of genre literature revealed a whole parallel universe of erotic
publishing and enthusiastic audiences:
"Erotic literature,
dirty books, one-handed reading, call it what you will, is the last
great taboo of the publishing world. Bookstores and supermarkets are
happy to stock titles in which children are abused, women victimized
and men brutalized, but if you look for books in which consenting
adults enjoy each other for the sexual entertainment of readers, you'll
probably find a few dog-eared copies hidden away at the back, near the
bathroom. Erotic books don't get reviewed, and you won't be seeing
their authors on Oprah any time soon.
The internet tells a
different story. Erotics outsell literary fiction by vast margins and,
freed from the embarrassment of walking up to the counter in Borders or
Wal-Mart, readers adopt a pick-and-mix approach. Straight women read
gay male porn, straight men read lesbian erotica, everyone seems to
enjoy everyone else, and the publishers and authors thrive."
The newest James Lear novel to hit bookstores is The Palace of Varieties,
just released this month. Paul Lemoyne is a callow but resourceful
18-year-old who leaves the hinterlands for the big city. A steamy
tearoom tryst initiates him into London's gay underground and lands him
a job at the seedy Palace of Varieties, where the nonstop backstage
blow jobs make the tacky onstage acts seem tame. "As hairy as a donkey
and hung like one as well!" as one of his astonished bedmates notes,
the indomitable Paul rises quickly from stagehand doing every man in
sight to well-heeled rent boy, reluctant thief, and friend with
benefits. James Lear's distinctive mix of page-turning prose, droll
humor, explicit sex, and memorable cast of sex-crazed studs of all
ages, shapes, and inclinations make this an exciting companion to The Back Passage and Hot Valley.
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