- Mass Market Paperback: 338 pages
- Publisher: Plume; Reprint edition (24 Sep 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0452273382
- ISBN-13: 978-0452273382
- Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 13.5 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,664,622 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Ralph Eckhart meets "Thersites" on the Internet. The manager of a Greenwich Village bookstore and politically to the left, Ralph agrees to an F2F (face-to-face) meeting with Thersites in Washington, D.C., where his friend Nancy writes speeches for a popular woman senator. With his penchant for Shakespearean drama, Ralph should have seen the elements gathering for tragedy...or farce. Thersites proves to be a young, attractive, and enthusiastic lover. He is also Republican, in the closet, right-wing, and the author of a tell-all book that spreads gossip about several Washington women, including a footnote about a lesbian affair between a speechwriter and a "happily married" senator. In a town where rumors can kill a career, such words may be fatal. And despite his passion, Ralph is disturbed by his new lover's politics...and then stunned at being charged with his murder. Christopher Bram joins dark satire with chilling suspense as Ralph is arrested for first-degree homicide and becomes a "cause" in the gay community.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
The first Christopher Bram novel I've read, this makes me want to read more. It's intelligent with a deliberately - and appealingly - trashy edge. It begins quietly, moving through interesting places like Washington political hang-outs and gay Internet chatrooms, but explodes with urgency after a couple of sudden, shocking events. After this point, the many characters we've been getting to know start to show their true colours, and it's complications and surprises all the way to the end.
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Excellent fast paced novel, which is both humorous and telling. Dealing with the eighties Bram's social comment is as adept as ever . Hey took me two days to read and a very enjoyable two days they were.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
15 reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Enjoy this book for what it is..... a very good read!
4 July 1998
Format:Mass Market Paperback
OK, it's not a great classic or anything, but taken on its own terms, it's highly enjoyable. The premise (gay liberal male gets involved with gay conservative male) is just a variation of the Carville/Matlin phenomenon, but Bram gives it the humor and odd twists which are required to keep your interest.
As for the second half, the so-called "mystery", readers would be well-advised to take that on Bram's terms, too; he's not really trying to make a big socially significant point, but he's not just settling for a frothy Robert Rodi-type novel, either. (No offense to Rodi, whose novels I always enjoy).
In some respects, Bram's style reminds me of Peter Cameron or Nick Hornby. These authors clearly care about their characters, but in a somewhat detached way which may not appeal to everyone.
Don't mistake this detachment for disinterest or lack of conviction; it's all there, it's just that Bram is evoking the era a bit more effectively than we may be comfortable acknowledging. No, the loose ends are not all neatly wrapped up at the end, but when does that ever happen in real life anyway?
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Strange bedfellows indeed ...
24 Jan 2007
Format:Mass Market Paperback
When I first picked up this book, I did not realize that it was gay fiction. Once into the book, I couldn't stop reading it though. It was suspenseful and interesting enough to keep reading, though I will admit that it left me even more confused at the end. It ends up being a book about morals and ethics ... which is really interesting.
Ralph Eckert is a young man who lives in NYC, quietly gay and content with his life as a bookseller in a bookstore. He travels to D.C. to visit a friend from college and before heading home, he met up with one of his computer friends to have a face to face meeting. That short affair led to diastrous results and a murder which Ralph was framed for. The young man who was murdered was a promising writer who was on the threshold of publishing a tell-all book about lesbians in D.C., in hopes to shatter careers. It was a bitterly written book and it was the reason why Ralph broke things off with him. Then Ralph finds himself in the center of a storm between the religious right and the gay activists who want to fight for their rights. Ralph was stuck smack in the middle of it and there doesn't seem a way out of the mess.
This book talks about choices and how choices make a mess of other people's lives ~~ how people can miscontrue other people's desires and wishes, how people can take off with a simple matter and see it explode into something out of their control and innocent people are left to pick up the pieces afterwards. It is interesting to see how all this ties in together ~~ and it was confusing in some parts. It is a book that explores human nature at its finest and at its worst and how people aren't what they seem to be. Very intriguing reading.
1-23-07
Ralph Eckert is a young man who lives in NYC, quietly gay and content with his life as a bookseller in a bookstore. He travels to D.C. to visit a friend from college and before heading home, he met up with one of his computer friends to have a face to face meeting. That short affair led to diastrous results and a murder which Ralph was framed for. The young man who was murdered was a promising writer who was on the threshold of publishing a tell-all book about lesbians in D.C., in hopes to shatter careers. It was a bitterly written book and it was the reason why Ralph broke things off with him. Then Ralph finds himself in the center of a storm between the religious right and the gay activists who want to fight for their rights. Ralph was stuck smack in the middle of it and there doesn't seem a way out of the mess.
This book talks about choices and how choices make a mess of other people's lives ~~ how people can miscontrue other people's desires and wishes, how people can take off with a simple matter and see it explode into something out of their control and innocent people are left to pick up the pieces afterwards. It is interesting to see how all this ties in together ~~ and it was confusing in some parts. It is a book that explores human nature at its finest and at its worst and how people aren't what they seem to be. Very intriguing reading.
1-23-07
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
A political thrilling murder mystery of gay life in the 90s
9 Nov 2000
Format:Mass Market Paperback
GOSSIP, by Christoper Bram, was the most exciting book I have ever read. It always kept me at the edge of my seat and in the end it blew me away. The book is about a gay man named Ralph Eckhart, who gets caught up in political life and in trouble with the law when he has an affair with Bill O'Connor, a closeted republican and journalist. Even though I don't pay much attention to politics or homosexual men, GOSSIP was a book that kept me wanting more and no other book has ever done that for me. Although I'm not much of a reader, the way Christopher Bram told the story made me love his book. It seemed as if everything in the book somehow had a connection to the other and it all falls together in the end. I loved the book and I'm sure you will too, so if you see the book GOSSIP in the bookstores pick it up and give it a try.
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