- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Algonquin Books (Mar 22 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1565122518
- ISBN-13: 978-1565122512
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 13.4 x 2.9 cm
- Shipping Weight: 431 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,769,016 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
The transformation of a gauche country boy from Pastel, Ala., into a latter-day Narcissus, circa 1978 (when to be young, pretty and gay was almost heaven), is the subject of Grimsley's new novel (after Comfort and Joy). Newell, a sweet-natured rube who has never bought a newspaper or used an umbrella, finds a room in the French Quarter. His fresh good looks attract the attention of Curtis, the manager of the restaurant where he finds a job as a busboy, but he's fired when he rebuffs his boss's advances. Luckily, he's soon hired at a pornographic book store stocked with glossy, plastic shrink-wrapped magazines relating the photogenic adventures of phallically enlarged young men and with movies that are available for group showings in curtained booths. The magazines awaken Newell to his true sexual nature, but do little to prepare him for the new erotic events in his life. Other characters include Miss Sophie, nee Clarence Eldridge Dodd, New Orleans' ugliest transsexual, who cleans the place, and the owner's nephew, scary Jack, a sadist who eventually preys on Newell after Newell breaks up with Mark Duval, a Tulane grad student obsessed by the Marquis de Sade. Grimsley's attempt to capture the carnival decadence of that time and place is smoothly done through naeve Newell's gradual understanding of the milieu he has entered, but somewhat undermined by the stereotypical portrayal of the Quarter's young male habitues as campy, empty-headed schoolgirls. Some readers may be put off by the fulsome details of Newell's sexual liaisons and his enlightenment, but for others the book will be a dark reminder of the era's excesses. Author tour.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In his most recent novel (Kirith Kirin, Comfort and Joy), multiple award winner Grimsley portrays a young man from a small town in Alabama looking to redefine himself in a big city. It's 1978, and Newell, recently graduated from high school and both afraid and joyful at finally beginning a long-desired journey, steps off a bus in hot and sticky New Orleans. After losing his first job as a bus boy for not sleeping with the manager, Newell quickly finds work in an adult bookstore. Once he feels secure in his new position, he begins to make friends. His good looks, youth, and friendly and polite demeanor make Newell very popular, especially as he begins to explore the physical side of his sexuality. His first boyfriend, Mark, is a drug user who introduces him to LSD and, even more harmfully, to Jack, a sadist who seduces him, causing him to return to his hometown the next day. Even though Newell leaves New Orleans, he knows he won't be staying in Alabama for long. Once again, Grimsley has created remarkably real characters and a New Orleans setting readers can almost smell. He has a way of touching very raw emotions without overemphasizing one specific detail by using everyday life and everyday events and then hinting at the darker side of human nature. This reviewer hopes that Grimsley continues Newell's adventures. Highly recommended. T.R. Salvadori, Margaret Heggan Free P.L., Hurffville, NJ
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Newell took his duffel down from the baggage rack, slung the strap over his shoulder, and climbed off the bus onto the pavement. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Newell took his duffel down from the baggage rack, slung the strap over his shoulder, and climbed off the bus onto the pavement. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great read, more for entertainment than anything else.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Boulevard (Paperback)
Grimsley is a beautifully gifted writer. This novel, Boulevard, lacks his previous explorations on the quiet desperation of true love. It does, however, keep the wonderfully constructed portraits of characters and the interesting plotline. The story traces an awkward, somewhat cliche, coming-of-age of a country boy who comes to the Big Easy. By the end of the novel, one is not sure if the boy has really changed, or if he has just become more 'experienced' in terms of cultural exchange/experience, etc. But perhaps Grimsley's finer point is made on that assumption: escape allows you to experience something new...but escaping will not change who or what you are.His power lies in his vocabulary and the languid, melancholy descriptions of heartache. The twisted characters he introduces and the interesting plot twists are not to be missed. Ironically, it is one of the minor characters (who actually gets more presence than most minor characters would) that charmed me the most. An aging drag queen comments on the lives of the characters around her, on her own life, and the quiet damnation of being an older transgendered man. Emotionally, I do not cling to this novel as I did Comfort and Joy, Winter Birds, and Dream Boy, but it did not seek out to make the reader cling to it. It is an expertly told story.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Great Writer, Incredibly Weak Book,
By Jack M. Walter "Jack M. Walter" (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Boulevard (Hardcover)
Was Jim Grimsley half-asleep when he wrote this novel? His fiction is usually powerful and moving, and I love his work, but Boulevard is a depiction of characters we don't care about in a plot that goes nowhere, but, thankfully ends eventually. A supreme disappointment. Read anything by him but this half-hearted effort.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not Worth Walking Down this "Boulevard",
By
This review is from: Boulevard (Hardcover)
I am a big fan of Jim Grimsley's work but was disappointed with his latest novel which reads juvenilely and works more effectively as a character study than an actual novel. I kept thinking as I read this novel that Mr. Grimsley was writing a screenplay or a script for the theatrical stage. What I do like in this work was the liberation of the central character Newell, who comes to New Orleans seeking a life he can only dream about, hence escaping the small town life of Pastel, Alabama. In some respects Newell's life mirrors my own experience when I moved to Chicago. Newell's sexual odyssey is what drives the novel, and the other notable characters as Ms. Sophia (A mentally deranged transvestite who works in the adult bookstore with Newell) Mac (the greasy, loud, bossy manager of the adult bookstore) and Mark (Newell's on-then-off again druggey boyfriend) fill in as bit players developed well enough to the point of passing interest for the reader. The ending of the novel seems a bit rushed and not well thought out as Newell decided to return to small town life, defeated by all the sexual imagery and freedom that surrounded him on a daily basis. There is no build for Newell's decision and hence, no empathy for me as a reader. I can only hope that Mr. Gimsley next literary effort will be as rich as the one I experienced with "Dream Boy" and "Comfort and Joy."
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