At three in the morning, to the sound of slow music on the piano, in the darkest corner of the best bar in the city, two lovers fall into each others arms... one is older and wiser: one is just nineteen. Then follow the rites and ceremonies of a love affair and a happy marriage. From the kisses of courtship to the reading of the banns; from the wedding to the lovemaking to the moment when the first child is cradled in the loving parents' arms, everything in this story is in its proper place. Except that this marriage is a marriage between two men. Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall recasts earlier twentieth century fiction into a decisively contemporary account of how men in love might imagine their lives.
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About the Author
Born in 1958, Neil Bartlett has spent twenty-five years at the cutting edge of British gay culture. His ground-breaking study of Oscar Wilde, Who Was That Man? paved the way for a queer re-imagining of history ; his first novel, Ready To Catch Him Should He Fall, was voted Capital Gay Book of The Year; his second, Mr Clive and Mr Page, was nominated for the Whitbread Prize. Both have since been translated into five European languages. Listing him as one of the country's fifty most significant gay cultural figures, the Independent said "Brilliant,beautiful, mischievous; few men can match Bartlett for the breadth of his exploration of gay sensibility". He also works as a director, and in 2000 was awarded an OBE for services to the theatre.
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This is a picture which I took of him myself. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
This is a picture which I took of him myself. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This book is short is one of the best works of gay-oriented fiction I have ever read. The book has a varied and fascinating cast of characters, in addition to being very sexy and romantic. Neil Bartlett has an incredible power of capturing the beauty of the English Language. 'Ready To Catch Him Should He Fall' was definately a page turner for me. I was somewhat disappointed with 'The House on Brooke Street', however.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By March Payne
Format:Paperback
I read this book first of all about a decade ago and remember loving it then. I picked it up recently and decided to re-read it, always worried as I am when re-reading a book that I have loved that the experience will not be the same and that I'll end up wondering why I had loved it so much to begin with. However with this book I was not dissppointed.
It's difficult to put into words how beautiful this novel actually is. The story plays like a simple love story but there is so much more to it. An older man falls for a beautiful and mysterious boy who wanders into the Bar one day. Set to a backdrop of an almost fantasy London where the streets aren't safe, the novel chronicles how O (the older man) and Boy (the younger man) develop into a couple with the help of their guardian angel, Madame/Mother.
Strange. Beautiful. Poignant.
Read it.
It's difficult to put into words how beautiful this novel actually is. The story plays like a simple love story but there is so much more to it. An older man falls for a beautiful and mysterious boy who wanders into the Bar one day. Set to a backdrop of an almost fantasy London where the streets aren't safe, the novel chronicles how O (the older man) and Boy (the younger man) develop into a couple with the help of their guardian angel, Madame/Mother.
Strange. Beautiful. Poignant.
Read it.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Gay sex lacks paradigms - it lacks EXAMPLES. You might not want to get involved in the whole "bottom" or "top" scene, but that doesn't mean that you want to have sex as an "equal". In fact I can't think of anything worse than two people undertaking a responsible and calmly thought out reasonable act of sex, or sexual relationship. WHAT WOULD BE THE POINT?! It would be like junk food. Neil Bartlett provides an archetype for a new kind of relationship - a deconstructed relationship with power relationships and contradictions, but THANK GOD, no compromises. This book is astonishing in that it draws you into a plot that is moving, but more importantly into a relationship that is fundamental, new, exciting, transgressive and yet equal (in its own way). In no way is this a trashily sentimental or sexy book. Nor is it at times an easy book to read. But christ bounce on me, it's a bloody brilliant one...
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Benjamin
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
Our nameless narrator tells of the arrival at The Bar, a discreet establishment with an exclusively gay clientele, of a young nineteen year old incredibly handsome fair skinned lad who they called The Boy, and his subsequent courtship and marriage with the equally handsome older man, know simply as O. The whole affair lovingly watched over, and almost managed by, Madame or Mother, the flamboyant proprietress of The Bar.
Beautifully written, steeped in atmosphere and rich in detail, but often deviating considerably from the main subject, Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall is a tender and moving love story. It also paints a vivid picture of the unspecified (but hinted at) time in which it is set, a time when in London gays were oppressed and regularly the victims of street attacks.
Beautifully written, steeped in atmosphere and rich in detail, but often deviating considerably from the main subject, Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall is a tender and moving love story. It also paints a vivid picture of the unspecified (but hinted at) time in which it is set, a time when in London gays were oppressed and regularly the victims of street attacks.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book made an instant impression on me. I read it in a night; it's and one of the most lush, romantic, beautifully written novels I have read.
By C. Scott
Format:Paperback
Possibly the finest book I have ever encountered. I spent the majority of it sobbing or on the verge of tears just by the beauty of it and the strength of Bartlett's writing and characters.
I've even bought many extra copies to give to friends so they can share in the amazing experience.
I've even bought many extra copies to give to friends so they can share in the amazing experience.
By Flyte
Format:Hardcover
Simply wonderful and fascinating; A 'cant put it down' book. The writing is subtle and wonderfully creative. Really good...buy this book!
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I read this book when it first came out and I must have enjoyed it because I've kept a copy for all these years but when I picked it up off the shelf to re-read I had absolutely no memory of it- usually a book stays somewhere in the subconscious but as I began it I thought I'd never read it before. Until, that is, Bartlett's hypnotic prose began to draw me in once again. The plot is a simple love story- Boy meets Older Man so nothing there was memorable enough to stay with me over the years but Bartlett's style is exquisite- it's a mixture of kitchen sink drama, fairy tale, gay coming of age story, myth and great tragedy yet it ends up being none of these. Enigmatic is probably the word for it but that makes it sound inaccessible which it isn't. At times it is a book of extraordinary power and beautiful writing, in places it is a little frustrating and borders on being pointless but it is certainly worth reading even if time hasn't led it to be the "classic" it promised to be when it was first published. I'm putting it back on my book shelf to re-discover in another fifteen or so years.
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