Reviewer: Alan Chin Publisher: Rebel Satori Press (Nov, 2023) Pages: 129 Rating:★★★★★ Coming Soon - November 12, 2023 from Rebel Satori Press   New Yorkers Brant and Lloyd settle into a posh neighborhood in Delhi to live while Lloyd works a new job that transplanted them to India. While Lloyd travels the country for his business, Brant is left alone much of the time with only a servant to keep him company. During his solitary time, Brant discovers the diary of a former diplomat’s wife, which chronicles her torrid affair with an Indian hoodlum. As Brant reads Carol’s scandalou ..read more

Reviewer: Alan Chin Publisher: Knopf (Mar, 2020) Pages: 400 Rating:★★★★★   Harvey Fierstein’s career began at community theater in Brooklyn and then advanced to the experimental Andy Warhol theater company where Harvey was encouraged to let his eccentric, nonconforming inner-being thrive. And he did just that. Working with Warhol’s Theatre of the Ridiculous company, Harvey honed both his acting and writing skills, which propelled him to write and perform his first mega hit, Torch Song Trilogy. Torch Song started as three separate plays, but was later combined into one moving play for an ..read more

  Reviewer: Alan Chin Publisher: Grove Press (Oct, 2020) Pages: 448 Rating:★★★★★ Shuggie Bain is the story of a lonely boy growing up gay in a run-down public housing area of 1980s Glasgow, Scotland. His broken family, due in large part to his alcoholic mother, is on the dole and trying to survive the mother’s destructive lifestyle. Shuggie’s mother, Agnes, dreams of a better life, a life of money and love and beautiful things, but her drinking only digs her and her children deeper into debt and misery. Shuggie is the youngest of three children, and the only one who accepts and tolerates ..read more

 A list of my fifteen favorite movies of all times. These are movies I’ve seen many times and always look forward to seeing them again. I tried to narrow it down to only ten, but I found that impossible.   1.     Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1976) 2.     Laurence of Arabia (1962) 3.     Flight of the Phoenix (1965) 4.     Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) 5.     Cabaret (1972) 6.     Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001) 7.&n ..read more

This is pic or my husband and I taken durning our last trip to Egypt. Herman is the handsome one on the right.  ..read more

  Reviewer: Alan Chin Publisher: Little, Brown, and Company (July, 2021) Pages: 358   Rating:★★★★★   In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry—freed by the Emancipation Proclamation—seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm, hoping through an unexpected friendship to stanch their grief. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they w ..read more

Reviewer: Alan Chin Publisher: Lucky Pony Press (may 2017) Pages: 454 A rocky tale that explores the relationship between a gay hustler and an aging drag queen, set in the world of 80s porn stars. This is not erotica, but a weak attempt at literary fiction. The characters are tired stereotypes, and because of that they fail to be convincing. The plot is a string of one gay cliché after another.  The one positive thing I can say is that author must have done a great deal of research into both the 80’s LA porn industry, as well as what it takes to be a drag queen. That said, I was not o ..read more

Reviewer: Alan Chin Publisher: Liveright, (Feb 12, 2019) Pages 352 In its heyday, South Bend, Indiana had been one of the industrial revolution’s brightest achievements, a factory town that produced everything from cars to watches. But then like much of the Midwestern rust belt, it fell into hard times, lost almost all its industry, and the young people were escaping to larger cities for better opportunities. The leadership Pete Buttigieg displayed as mayor of South Bend, steered the people of South Bend to rebuild their city into a thriving community.  In this entertaining and in ..read more

Reviewer: Alan Chin Publisher: Arcade (April, 2019) Pages: 320 ★★★★ Set in 1992 Poland, Jay Porter, an American FBI agent, is asked to assist in a multiple-murder case in Warsaw. He teams up with a gay, African-American, CIA counterpart, Kurt Crawford to investigate three murdered Russians that may have links to stolen nukes. When a fourth Russian body is found, new clues allow Jay to piece together a complex puzzle that involves high-ranking officials, local police, and even Jay Porter’s new Polish love interest. The deeper Jay digs, the more sinister things appear, because all ..read more

Publisher: Scribner (April, 2019) Pages: 160 Rating:★★★ Besson’s story follows the lives of two men, starting in high school(1984), picked up again in 2007, and again in 2016. The lion’s share of the story takes place in the HS period where the two have a sexual awakening with each other. What starts as a purely physical relationship morphs into something more. Still, during this time living is a small rural town in France, the boys must hide their growing love. The story continues to focus on the boys as they approach the time when they are deciding what's next with their ..read more