Mykola DementiukRezensionen

Despite being released by an erotic romance publisher, “Bathroom Trysts” is neither romantic nor even erotic. At least, it won’t be to the majority of readers of gay romance (ie heterosexual women). The book would have found itself more at home with a publisher like Cleis or Lethe Press and marketed as gay fiction where it would have been welcomed by gay men and those interested in social history.

In succinct, dispassionate but at times hauntingly lyrical prose, the author captures the people, the place and the essence of the era.

First person point of view immediately puts the reader fair and square in the head of a young man (we are not told his age initially) in a time where being gay was seen as a sin. Readers who are naturally warm-hearted will squirm as the narrator does things they would never dream of doing or thinks thoughts repugnant to them. But anyone with a degree of imagination and empathy, (especially if they have read other books of that period) can really feel the loneliness and shame as he relates his tales with a disconcerting lack of emotion.

This distance extends to the sex scenes, mirroring the disconnectedness that pervaded that aspect of his life as well. No lingering pleasure was achieved from these brief encounters, only a quick gratification of urges leaving the narrator and reader even more sullied by an experience which in better circumstances should be uplifting and fulfilling. There was nothing sexy or even romantic about these trysts. The rainbow may be their symbol, but those two ideals were pots of gold at each end. Impossible to find – in those days at least.

This will be a difficult story for many people to read and review. No doubt it will attract its share of criticism. But I wouldn't mind betting that some men will get a kind of guilty pleasure while reading it. Possibly the same men who shared these encounters with similar young men or dreamed of doing so. Others will read the stories and wince at the memory.

Some of the scenes depicted are disturbing, and I suspect the author meant them to be. After all, isn't that a form of comment on the incidents themselves. What was the alternative? Wrap the memories up in judgemental self-loathing? Gay men were always made to feel the outsider. Dirty, shameful.

Dirk Vanden, winner of this year’s Lambda Award for erotic romance maintains that in those days gay men deliberately sought out and indulged in degraded sex because that's all they felt they deserved for being queer. Seeing everyone reviled them for being gay and they were going to hell anyway, the shackles were off as they sought out the company of like-minded men to share in their “downfall”.

These people were not just the six pack Adonises who grace the cover of today’s m/m romances. They were the overweight, the hairy, the meek, the mild, the old, the married, the accountant (or priest) and the truck driver stinking of BO.

It is not until we are further into the book that we discover the narrator is still a teenager, 15, underage, illegal. This throws another angle into play. Underage sex. But it also explains why, apart from exploitation there are other factors involved: experimentation, lack of money, confusion, not knowing anything else is possible, immaturity, the self-centredness of youth, lack of empathy from not having enough life experience.
Mind you, some teens look like men and I'm sure people weren't flashing around ID cards.

Now, without judging a reviewer’s right to their own opinion, I’d like to address a point I came across in another review which can be read in context here: http://briefencountersreviews.com/2012/08/07/bathroom-trysts-by-mykola-dementiuk...

“What really turned me off the story, though, was the narrator's reaction to the cross-dressing character who asks him to come on her face, even offering money for his "scum". When it doesn't quite go to plan and she takes the money back, the narrator curses her, calling her a "faggot whore" and a "half-boy/half-girl fake". If this transphobia had been dealt with by the narrator, calling on a more mature perspective in his later life (the point from which he is supposedly narrating) then I could have accepted it as the callousness of youth. Unfortunately this didn't happen, and after that I lost all sympathy for him.”

While totally understanding where they are coming from, I see this differently.

First off, I’m going to assume that now he is older, the author is well aware of how he will come across if he writes words like that. The question is, should he self-censor who he was back then? At that age, that was truly what he thought. Heck, a lot of adults still feel like that. But, given his intelligence as shown by other factors, isn't there a degree of self-criticism implicit in his acknowledgement of writing how he felt then?

Gay men had pecking orders. All men do. Some men who were struggling with coming to terms that they were gay felt that pretending you were female or acting like a female was the worst thing you could do. Check out the rules of the Old Guard and again, Dirk Vanden's writing of that time. Even though there are still pockets of prejudice, the fem gay man of today or the cross dresser or transman should count themselves lucky that they live in a different era. But this has only been possible because being gay stopped being a crime.

Like the pungent aroma of antiseptic used in a public urinal, the sad, lonely, and self-loathing stories will leave you with a nasty aftertaste. Thank God we have come so far since then that we are revolted by the difference to today’s standards.

Sometimes, I wonder if gay guys over forty deep down resent or are jealous of the fact that younger men didn't go through all this. That they escaped being divorced from their families, their work colleagues and society in general.

I read stories by men like Mykola Dementiuk, Blake Deveraux and others damaged by their pasts and cringe when these facts are included in their novels and they get condemned by reviewers for the content. In a way, I find that as bad as the condemnation that existed in their day.

We should be thanking these men for writing stories like this. Hopefully, they are a cathartic experience. No, we are not meant to "get off" on them.

Writing of these “trysts” without the author’s intervention or apology for thinking or doing things that may be unacceptable by today’s standards is better in the long term as these stories will last well into a future which will see even more changes. If “judging” be done, let each era, read, appreciate and make their comments on their current knowledge and values and acknowledge (hopefully) how much better things are now.

If the writer had written or “judged” from today’s viewpoint that puts an anachronistic stopper into the piece. His thoughts back onto what he was like then may change in ten years. Heck, they’re possibly even different from what they were ten years ago. Better to chronicle without judgement and let an empathetic reader use the picture it paints to understand the era.

In Australia, for a long time, a big deal was made about saying “Sorry” to aborigines for the way they were treated in the past. Oppressed, taken away from their families, abused, mistreated. Many people objected strongly to the notion that they should apologise for actions they themselves had nothing to do with, in fact many happened before they were born. Just the thought that an apology was needed created great debate. It is only a word. Action is needed as well, but sometimes, these gestures can carry great meaning. They are a line in the sand. An expression of determination never to repeat that mistake.

In the same vein, whenever I read books like this, I am often prompted to do the same. Instead of adding further agony to the negativity the author received in the past, I am going to praise the book and say “Sorry” the world was not a better place.

A novella about 19 years old Richard searching his path in life in 1970s New York City; Richard has no a lot of chances in front of him, with only an high school diploma, and no experience, he is basically wandering the streets searching for nothing. But something he finds, a man, Ralphie.

Ralphie is way more experienced than Richard, and he is able to recognize the hunger in Richard’s eyes and body. And he is ready to catch it. But Ralphie is a player, a good kisser, but not what sweet Richard needs. Richard is like a blossom ready to open, and he needs care and love, something that Ralphie doesn’t care to share. But there is another man, old Mr. James, that maybe is the right man for the task.

Everyone sees in Mr. James an old man, no danger but neither no thrill. For most of the men wandering the East River Park, Mr. James is invisible. Despite Richard’s young age, he is a gentle soul, and he is able to see beyond the appearance, Mr. James is the one who will be able to kiss this sleepy princess into a queen (pun intended).

Very nice, and almost sweet story, something unexpected considering Mykola Dementiuk’s past works.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007OWGA0G/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

On the summer of 1969, Young Man is a high school dropout who is spending his days prowling the East River Park in NYC. He has never actually spoken with any of the other park patrons, but he knows them: the man with the Chihuahua, the woman with the Dalmatian, and that old man who is always looking at him. Young Man doesn’t understand himself or his feelings, at times he is attracted by the woman, at times by the men, I think that whoever of them would approach him, Young Man would be fine, since basically he needs a leading hand. And Mr Chervy alias Miss Crystal, a retired teacher who cross-dresses only in the intimacy of his home, will be the one to take in hand, literally, Young Man. Young Man and Miss Crystal’s relationship is very much that of teacher and pupil, and while Young Man likes Miss Crystal, he doesn’t like the authoritarian persona he represents and he, liked dropped out of school, arrives to a confrontation with Miss Crystal that leads him away. Out again in the street, he meet the Librarian, almost a replica of Miss Crystal, another kind and lonely man who wouldn’t like better than finding a companion, someone who is never to leave him. Young Man will be the bridge between Miss Crystal and the Librarian, and maybe for the time being he will be with them, but I think that his task is accomplished, Miss Crystal and the Librarian will never be alone again, they now have each other, and if they wish to help other young men, why not, but the most important thing is that, while these young me will come and go, they will always have each other.

I know that probably this is not the most literary novella by Mykola Dementiuk, he wrote much important works, but to my romantic heart, this is my favourite; I really like Miss Crystal and the Librarian, they are compassionate men who need love, and I’m so glad that in the end they met each other. Young Man is probably a desperate case, he could probably improve, but I have the feeling that he will be always like that, a bad boy with a bad mouth. But that doesn’t matter, since he has not a bad heart, on the contrary, he is confused and needing love as much as Miss Crystal and the Librarian need. And for a little time, or maybe forever, they have found that love and each other.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0071QHQ1M/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

I often notice that Mykola Dementiuk doesn’t give a name to his main character, like in this case. Beginning of the 1960s, a man is living in a rooming house in New York City and prowling the neighbourhood under the Williamsburg Bridge. I don’t think he is specifically searching for sex, maybe more for “inspiration”, some fantasy he can use later on to masturbate alone. But during one of his prowling session he meets Chica, a transgender Puerto Rican girl. She is beautiful and she is nice to him, more nice than everyone else before, even if it’s clear she is aiming to his, few, money. But it doesn’t matter, it’s like a dream taking life, the man thinks he has finally found love, someone he could share his lonely life. Doesn’t matter that Chica is prostituting herself, doesn’t matter that she will basically do everyone on her path, for money or protection, she is a dream to the man’s eyes… but a dream can fade as soon as the blink of those same eyes.

Knowing Mykola Dementiuk, I was fully expected the feeling of the story and the development, but it seems to me this time he was a little more “kind” with Chica; sure she is not your good girl next door, she is a gold digger, and I’m pretty sure that as soon as the money are gone, also the girl will follow soon, but I didn’t feel in her the same “bad core” as I did for similar characters in some previous stories by the same author. Chica is probably at a stage she could be still “saved” by love if given a chance. And the man will lost his heart to her, and everything he has, but at least he will have the memory of her.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0066DZM0S/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

As almost all the production by Mykola Dementiuk, Times Square Cutie is set in a lost and forgotten New York City, a place that, even if in broad daylight, it seemed to be always in the shadows, dirty and smelly, apparently with a danger behind each corner. Thinking at today NYC is like thinking to fashion and exclusivity, writing of that NYC is writing about desperate men and women, trying to reach the end of the day with something to eat and a roof atop your head; most of the time, the roof is always different, and what you wear is all your possession.

Billy is a transvestite young guy who wants to change his life, maybe or maybe not; he is tired to be used and abused, and for once he would like to be the one in power. When he meets Rebecca, a girl with a big heart, but with some missing wheels in her brain, he decides that he will be the one to take advantage of the situation. Sure, it’s not nice from his side, Rebecca is obviously not totally aware of what she is doing, but in the end Billy is doing nothing more than what many other men before him did, and, well, he is probably a lesser evil than most. Only that a not so innocent but mostly harmless game will take a dark turn, and the result for both Billy than Rebecca will be tragic.

This is probably a little piece of recent history, a novella describing lost time, lost people, lost hope; is Billy a victim or a villain? Maybe both, maybe none of them. Billy is like all the other characters from Mykola Dementiuk, older before his age, a young man that will probably not see his old age, unless he doesn’t leave NYC, since that city is like a trap; but that same city is also the only place where someone like Billy can live, even if it will be a short life.

http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1303108.html

Mykola Dementiuk’s fictional world is very much related to his own experience made of movie theatres and almost abandooned apartments in the lower East Side of a ’70 New York, a city that doesn’t exist no more.

More than once his main character has no name and is a young man experiencing his first time far from the safe shelter of the suburban life: in this case the young man was living not far from the lower East Side, in the Queens. When the man’s mother dies leaving him with a nice annuity and the possibility to realize his small dreams, he decides to move to Manhattan. He has a white collar job in the City and leaving in the East Side he is nearer to the Times Square’s theatres he likes to frequent during the weekend. He has not much experience as homosexual, but he is not against the idea to make more, but in his naivite he exchanges lust for love.

At first I thought the love story he was leaving was nice and sweet, but indead knowing Mykola Dementiuk’s stories, it was not a chance. The young man our hero meets in a bookstore reading Catcher in the Rye (and for that reason he will become Catcher), is not the sweet young man he appears. Few days later the main character meets him again, only this time he is dressed as a young woman and it’s clear that she is whoring herself. This is not a reason for the hero to avoid her, on the contrary, he is even more fascinated by the perspective of having a woman and a man in the same body, in a way it allows to him to not think at himself as homosexual, or at least not entirely.

But Catcher has not interest in a love story, she is too much lost in her own quest towards hell, and instead of finding in the hero a reason to love, she brings him down in her world: the hero becomes Missy, not as pretty as Catcher, but with her own admirers. One of these men will give Missy her first real experience with sex, but that is not what she will consider important. Other than allowing her to discover a world she didn’t know existed, Catcher introduces Missy to Sheila, an Afro-american transgender woman (I think from woman to man, but I’m not entirely sure…) who will be Missy’s first experience in giving and receiving pleasure.

I’m not sure if we can consider Missy’s evolution from young man to young woman an happily ever after story, as I’m not sure that this is indead Missy’s final stop; I think she has still a lot to learn and probably Sheila is not her definitive lover. Sure Missy is more man than woman, and so maybe Sheila is a good choice for her right now, but Missy is only 26 years old, and those are the ’70… we well not that in 10 years or so the world will change for people like her, and she will need to change again as well. The world that Missy is wandering now is on a timeline and she cannot build her home inside it. It’s for sure with nostalgia that the author tells the reader about it, even if dirty, shady and dangerous, in a way that world was probably more genuine, and men like Missy had more chance to openly live then that maybe now.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0042ANZ24/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

If you know Mykola Dementiuk’s works, Times Queer, Holy Communion, you know that reading Dee Dee Day you will not find a classical romance. And how it could be? This is the story of a young man in the ‘70s who fall obsessed (obsessed not in love) with his elder landowner, a 72 years old woman called Dee Dee.

When Bill sees for the first time Dee Dee, he thinks she is an attractive woman of maybe 50 years, and he is not sexually attracted by her; but then he has the chance to discover Dee Dee’s secret, she is born as Richard, but she never looked like a boy and her own parents decided to let her dress and be like a girl. In those old time, Dee Dee was happy and in love with Billy, a same age boy who sadly died during the WWII. Now Dee Dee is living in an house full of Billy’s memories, mainly photos of that period, and I think she is only waiting for the time when she will be with him again.

If the reader thinks this is a sad story, he has also to think that, truly, Dee Dee is not in love with Bill; she is nice with him, and yes, maybe she is also attracted by him, who will be not? But at 72 years old she has not a second chance at love, she is only having a nice affair that maybe it will be useful to Bill. Bill is still uncomfortable with his body and desires, and Dee Dee helps him understand all better: Dee Dee knows that Bill is not for her, that Bill will go and find his true love, like Dee Dee did and found in Billy.

All the story is set in a past era, the ’70s and the ‘40s of Dee Dee’s memories; it’s strange how to see that Dee Dee considers the ‘70s not a good time for gay people, and instead she thinks that in the ‘40s they had a better life. It’s not the first time I read a story about gay lovers of the ‘40s and it’s not the first time that I have this feeling that, more or less, in the ‘40s they had no right, but simple since they were not recognized as existing, but in the end, they could love each other in the closet.

Again, if the reader thinks that this novella has not a happy ending, I think he is wrong. It has the only possibly happy ending and this experience serves to Bill to be able to build his life; the same Dee Dee I think was not expecting nothing else, and probably she was the first to push Bill to find his own path in life.

A note on the publisher: I think they dared a lot with this story that is not their usual trend, an historical novella (if ‘70s can be considered “historical”) and an out of romance rules story, and I think they should be awarded for it with readers taking notice of that.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0039GL16Y/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

This is again, like Times Queer, not a romance and not even a gay novel. It was probably tagged as 'gay' (and I'm not saying that as a derogatory meaning), since people think at what was the following life of the author of this book, and they probably identified the 7 years old of the story with the author himself... maybe it's like that, maybe not. In every book there is something of his author, but there is also the evidence of a reality that maybe it's not the one experienced by him.

This is the story of a 7 years old, and I find still very difficult to think at sex linked to that age, above all to sexual orientation. It's true, I read just last night a book where the main character said that he knew he was gay at that same age, but I still believe that at 7 years old, more than a sexual orientation you have a vague idea of what is sex and what you are attracted to, the mystery of it more than the physical representation, the male or female body. There is no doubt that the young boy of this book (no name I believe), is forced to face things that make him question about 'that', but he doesn't know what 'that' is. His body is changing, and he is starting to feel something, parts of his body that before where only there, without purpose, now make him do strange things.

To the changing happening to his body, he has to add also the big change outside, he is preparing for the 'Holy Communion'... another mystery, another strange thing happening to him on which he has no control and that he is not sure to like. Who represents it, nuns and priests, are no people he likes, and it seems a too big weight for his small age. After the Holy Communion you will be no more a child, you will loose your innocence... like doing 'those' acts. The boy is not sure that it's something he wants to do, he is not sure that he wants to loose his innocence, in his mind the Holy Communion is not something good, it's at the same level with committing a sin.

And for the boy is not ended here, the only figure he trusts, the only person who seems to love him, his mother, has an accident and she is taken to hospital, far from him, right in the moment when he would need her more. It's not said, but maybe in his mind he is the estrangement from his mother like a punishment for all is happening around him, all things that he has no power on. The boy is involved in unwilling sexual acts with adults, both men than women, and everytime he runs away, scared. The fear for the unknown will be his salvation, not the Holy Communion: since he is not guilty, he has no sin, and he is safe.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0975858149/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

Times Queer is not for sure a light and sunny novel, it's instead cold and harsh as the neon lights of the Times Square (here Times Queer) of the title. At seven years old Richard Kozlowsky is going with his parents from the suburbs to central Manhattan to spend the sunday at the theater, as a lot of other people in the '50. Only that little Ricky is molested on the tram, and this episode will change forever his perspective on sex; he imprints in his mind the name 'Times Queer', a place where you can find the forbidden, sex and easy money, and from that moment on for him sex will ever be something dirty and cheap, and in some strange twist of mind, to 'do' in public.

Ricky is obsessed by women, from the curves of a woman's body, but the easy sex he finds with men; in the shadow of a theater, in the public men's room of the big Mananhattan parks, even with some of his friends. Blowjobs, handjobs, one time even anal sex, Ricky is always the one to receive them, always repeating in his mind like a tantra the name of some dream girl; Ricky never once questions the loneliness of these men, or that maybe there is something more in sex with a man than an easy way to get off for free. The two times he is forced (really forced with a weapon on his head) to have sex with a man from the giving side, Ricky feels sick. And when he falls in love with a woman, she is someone like him, someone who has a very strange perspective on sex.

I don't know if Ricky is straight or gay or in between; when normally young people form their 'sexual' mind, Ricky was exposed to the worst side of sex, and I don't believe he had the change to develop his sexuality; he is like a beast trapped in a cage and famished, and when he has the chance to reach for 'food' (sex), he does it in a frenzy and without savoring it, gobbling bite after bite, act after act, almost fearing that someone will deprive him of the next bite. And when he is satiated, for a brief moment, he regrets what he has just done, only for soon after searching for another occasion to do it again and again.

Ricky is not a stable man, he is on the verge, but sincerely I feel more pity for him than aversion. The book covers Ricky's life from child to young man, still a teen, but don't judge Ricky's action with a 'modern' eyes: the book is setting in the '50 and the beginning of the '60, and 16 years old in that time are not the same of today. It's even more sad to read of modern Ricky who still wanders around Times Square, no more the Times Queer he remembers: the city is changed, is grown, and instead Ricky is still trapped in his cage.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0975858114/?tag=elimyrevandra-20