Patrick McCabe: Breakfast on Pluto

Dt.v. H.-C. Oeser. D 2006, 219 S., pb, € 8.17
Kostenloser Versand ab 20 Euro Bestellwert.
Das Buch von Booker-Preisträger Patrick McCabe zur Verfilmung mit Cillian Murphy und Liam Neeson in den Hauptrollen: Patrick »Pussy« Braden hält es nach einer unerträglichen Kindheit im bigotten, erzkatholischen Irland nicht mehr länger aus. Als Teenager wirft er einen Zettel in den Kummerkasten seiner katholischen Schule. Darin fragt er nach den besten Adressen für eine Geschlechtsumwandlung. Kein Wunder, dass Patrick danach bei seinen Lehrern und seiner Adoptivmutter endgültig untendurch ist. Pussy bricht mit der Konvention, zieht nur mehr Frauenkleider an und bricht mit ihrer Vergangenheit, indem er sich als Pussy dem Sänger Billy Rock anschließt, der an dem Transvestiten einen Narren gefressen hat. Doch Pussy lässt sich nicht in die Band integrieren, geht nach England. Als Transvestit geht er in London auf den Strich und verdient so sein Geld. Doch dann macht die Politik Pussy einen Strich durch die Rechnung. Die IRA greift zum Mittel des Terrors. Pussys schöne Traumwelt erhält erste Risse.

Jason Goodwin: The Janissary Tree

UK 2006, 332 pp., hardback, € 22.79
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Europas.
Yashim is no ordinary detective. It's not that he's particularly brave. Or that he cooks so well, or reads French novels. Not even that his best friend is the Ambassador from Poland, whose country has vanished from the map. Yashim is the world's first neutered detective, i.e. an eunuch. As the Sultan plans a series of radical reforms to his empire, a concubine is strangled in the palace harem. And a young cadet is found butchered in the streets of Istanbul. Delving deep into the city's crooked alleyways, and deeper still into its tumultuous past, handsome Yashim discovers that some people will go to any lengths to preserve the traditions of the Ottoman Empire. Brilliantly evoking Istanbul in the 1830s, The Ottoman Detective is a fast-paced literary thriller with a spectacular cast. Darker than any of these is the mysterious figure who controls the Sultan's harem.

Louis Bayard: The Pale Blue Eye

USA 2007, 415 pp., brochure, € 13.95
Kostenloser Versand ab 20 Euro Bestellwert.
At West Point Academy in 1830, the calm of an October evening is shattered by the discovery of a young cadet's body swinging from a rope just off the parade grounds. An apparent suicide is not unheard of in a harsh regimen like West Point's, but the next morning, an even greater horror comes to light. Someone has stolen into the room where the body lay and removed the heart. As the police-officer Landor questions the dead man's acquaintances, they find an eager assistant in a moody, intriguing young cadet with a penchant for drink, two volumes of poetry to his name, and a murky past that changes from telling to telling. The cadet's name? Edgar Allan Poe. Impressed with Poe's astute powers of observation, Landor is convinced that the poet may prove useful. Soon, the macabre murders and Landor's own buried secrets threaten to tear the two men and their newly formed friendship apart.

Richard McCann: Mother of Sorrows

USA 2006, 196 pp., brochure, € 12.95
Kostenloser Versand ab 20 Euro Bestellwert.
In prose as silky smooth as the clothes from his mother's closet, McCann relates an Eisenhower-era coming-of-age story in a D.C. suburb of trimmed lawns and station wagons. Civil defense leaflets picture moms in backyard bomb shelters, leafing through magazines stacked on Danish modern coffee tables. In the midst of the cold war, shootouts on Gunsmoke provide drama in the living room. Overlapping flash-forwards and -backs show older brother Davis, the glamorous mother dressing for an evening out, then an old woman needing to check her blood sugar. Throughout, McCann captures the nuances of bonding, down to the elaborate »twin speak« of the brothers, differing only 15 months in age, devises and ultimately provides insight into a gay man's development at a bygone midcentury.

Ben Tyler: One Night Stand

USA 2006, 294 pp., brochure, € 13.89
Kostenloser Versand ab 20 Euro Bestellwert.
Like millions of other gorgeous, iron-pumped young guys, Derek Bracken came to Hollywood with dreams of stardom and maybe a chance at Mr. Right. But after a few years of washing tables, juggling acting classes and auditions, and working the casting couch on his back, Derek's still a sexy unknown - until a sheet-soaking session with a Hollywood hotshot takes his life and career in a very new and profitable direction. As a top-notch escort servicing Tinseltown's closeted stars and gay mafia dons, Derek becomes a star in his own right. With his underwear-model-worthy body, considerable bedroom skills, and the kind of imagination that turns any encounter into sexual nirvana, he's made a small fortune and lots of high-powered friends. But Derek wants more.

George K. Ilsley: ManBug

CAN 2006, 228 pp., brochure, € 15.69
Kostenloser Versand ab 20 Euro Bestellwert.
When Tom, a dyslexic bisexual Buddhist, attempts to give his boyfriend, Sebastian, a gay entomologist with Asperger's syndrome, an ironic superhero nickname, he transposes the words »bug man«. »ManBug« is the result. Author George K. Ilsley's debut novel follows the bumpy course of their relationship as they traverse Tom's addiction to deflowering sensitive »manboys« and Sebastian's Gregor Samsa–esque identification with insects. The strength of the novel comes from Ilsley's language play and his ability to make Sebastian's symptoms of Asperger's, which render him unable to read emotions, serve as a handy metaphor for how at sea anyone can feel when navigating relationships. But Ilsley's larky and radiant story provides more than the anatomy of a disorder.

Henry James: The Awkward Age

UK 2006, 323 pp., brochure, € 14.59
Kostenloser Versand ab 20 Euro Bestellwert.
Making her debut in London society, Nanda Brookenham is being groomed for the marriage market. Thrust suddenly into the superficial and immoral circle that surrounds her mother, the innocent but independent-minded young woman even finds herself in competition with Mrs. Brookenham for the affection of the man she admires. Only an elderly bachelor, Mr. Longdon, is immune to this world of greed and scheming, and determines to rescue Nanda from its corrupting influences out of loyalty to the deep love he once felt for her grandmother. In »The Awkward Age« (from 1899), author Henry James explores the English character and the clash between old and new money with a light and subtly ironic touch to create a devastating critique of society and its machinations.

Truman Capote: Summer Crossing

UK 2006, 139 pp., pb, € 8.20
Kostenloser Versand ab 20 Euro Bestellwert.
Grady McNeil is beautiful, rich and defiant. Her privileged society leaves her wanting more than her conventional parents have in mind for her, and excitement comes in the form of highly unsuitable Clyde, a Brooklyn-born Jewish parking attendant. When Grady's mother and father leave her alone one summer in their New York penthouse, her secret affair intensifies, and she is forced to make decisions that will alter her future indelibly. Anticipating Holly Golightly (from »Breakfast at Tiffany's«) with its free-spirited heroine, Truman Capote's recently discovered debut novel is also a captivating portrayal of first love and the endless possibilities of youth.