Hold Tight: A Novel - Softcover

Bram, Christopher

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452262267 ISBN 13: 9780452262263

Publisher: Plume, 1989

Synopsis

“Nazi intrigue in a homosexual brothel . . . a spy thriller that breaks new ground.”—Kirkus Reviews
 
Hank Fayette, Seaman Second Class, had enlisted in his Texas hometown, used his shore leave to visit a movie house on 42nd Street, and ended up in a gay brothel near Manhattan’s West piers. It was the wrong place to be at the wrong time. When this big, lanky blond with a country boy’s drawl—and a country boy’s hard muscular body—couldn’t fight his way clear of the Shore Patrol who raided the place, he figured he was on his way to the brig or a dishonorable discharge. But in 1942, a few months after Pearl Harbor, the Navy was more interested in capturing spies than in punishing “sex offenders,” and Hank was just the kind of sailor they had in mind. Their offer to Hank was simple: go back to the brothel, work undercover as a prostitute, and risk your life to entrap Nazi spies. This erotic, suspenseful novel captures the big-band feel of New York City in the forties, the intensity of a nation at war, and the passion of men for their country—and for each other.
 
“Entertaining, sexy, and touching . . .”—Stephen McCauley
 
“Strong, action-filled . . . a tightly knit plot . . . a very engaging story about murder and intrigue that is hard to put down.”—Lambda Rising Book Report

About this title

About the Author

Christopher Bram is the author of five previous novels, including Father of Frankenstein (Dutton/Plume), which is currently being developed into a film with Clive Barker as executive producer. A widely published book and film critic whose work appears in numerous publications across the country, he lives in New York City.

From Publishers Weekly

The clever premise of this frothy espionage novel by the author of Surprising Myself is that during World War II there was a gay brothel in lower Manhattan that may have been a hangout for Nazi agents (a rumor of its existence sparked the story, Bram notes in his acknowledgements). When he is discovered to be homosexual, seaman second class Hank Fayette faces a dishonorable discharge unless he agrees to go undercover as a prostitute. The ensuing events are very funny, fast-movingBram is able to juggle characters and plot lines without slackening the paceand, ultimately, emotionally stirring. Hank falls for Juke, the black drag queen who is an attendant at the brothel, and later he develops a crush on a straight man. Bram makes the characters believable, and he takes care not to be anachronistic: by keeping the awkward relationships in their pre-gay-liberation context, he captures the tensions between blacks and whites and gays and non-gays in the New York of the period. There is graphic sex here, but Bram uses it adroitly either to further the spy story, or to explain the undercurrents of real feeling he poignantly conveys. 30,000 first printing; first serial to Christopher Street.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Plume
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0452262267
• ISBN 13: 9780452262263
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288