Up a Tree

Up a Tree

Volume four, Issue 25 | June 30 – July 6, 2004

BOOKS

THE BEGINNING:

AN ALLEGORY

iUniverse, Inc.

$13.95, 186 pages

Let me make a deal with Troy Ygnacio Soriano, author of a first novel “The Beginning: Allegory.

I shall tell the readers of Gay City News what a good book it is, because it is that, if he will rember it isn’t “sex between Jason and I” it is “Sex between Jason and me.” (This happens more than once.)

Some information about the narrator on page 78 belongs at the very beginning, to flesh out the character at once. Nothing is gained by stalling. On the contrary, it falls into the “Oh, I forgot to tell you” category of narrative awkwardness.

I’m sorry Troy Ignazio Soriano has not been let in on constructive matters like these by editors, copy editors, acknowledged friends and mentors in the business, but as I am none of these, only a reader who came upon “The Beginning” because somebody gave it to somebody at a party who thought I might like it, and indeed I do.

I won’t say too much else about the novel—it is one you should discover on your own—except that the detailing of the unique rules of attraction obtaining between the narrator and his beloved is masterful, and that the beloved gives birth to a baby boy, and you better believe it: I certainly did, every word, grammatical glitches notwithstanding.

“The Beginning” is a lovely debut from a young author from whom I hope to see, and of whom I hope to hear a whole lot more.

—James McCourt

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