Infidelity - Hardcover

Rooney, William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0789006219 ISBN 13: 9780789006219

Publisher: Harrington Park Pr, 1998

Synopsis

Can a relationship based on incredibly passionate and raw sexual fulfillment disguise itself as true love? Or is true love just a name given to sexual fulfillment?

Such was the question faced by Tom Clifden, a clever street hustler who found himself sexually glued to Hank Carter, a struggling would-be actor in New York City. Their physical and sexual appetites for each other knew no boundaries. Night after night they revelled in passionate and uninhibited sexual episodes.

But the question comes up much later. Tom is 53 years old and (without Hank) has used his good looks and street smarts to good advantage. He owns a string of bars across the country and is comfortably settled in Key West.

His quietude ends abruptly when a letter arrives from Eunice, a woman who 25 years earlier was Hank's first love-and the woman whom Hank had abandoned for Tom's unbelievable sexual powers and pleasures.

"Hank is dead." The letter was short and to the point. More letters follow and more are exchanged. The correspondence evolves into a steamy, explicit tale about Hank's true character and identity-a Hank that for so many long years Tom had not even known.

This is the story of two handsome young men who try to build a relationship during the sexually explosive and carefree years of the late 60s. The tale of their love unfolds, revealing the challenges of the ever-growing temptations of INFIDELITY.

About this title

About the Author

William Rooney lives in various parts of the United States, preferring not to linger long in any one location. He has been writing novels, unrecognized and unpublished, for 25 years. He was, early in his life, in the United States Air Force for a brief spell before resigning, claiming chronic boredom as the reason for his premature departure. But for acting on the impulse of his logic, he was penalized by having to serve a month in jail before he was finally discharged. He then went to New York City to become an actor, landing a part in Brian Friel's The Mundy Scheme on Broadway in 1969. He quit acting after the play closed because he realized that American culture would require him (with his boyish looks) to play moronic juveniles in pathetic comedies until the day would come (maybe twenty years later) when it would take a pound of pancake just to cover the lines in his face. In all the years that followed, he has traveled quite a bit, supporting himself by bartending (even spending one night working behind a bar in Paris, speaking absolutely not a word of French).

His next book to be published is entitled Rooney's Short Stories, which is a collection of short stories. His life's ambition is to own a chunk of land which he would populate with dogs, none of which would be up for sale.

Reviews

The story of two young men in love and trying to break into Broadway musicals of the late 1960s comprises the first title in the publisher's new imprint of erotic gay fiction. Tom Clifden, the cynic and occasional hustler from Connecticut, and Hank Carter, a country boy from Indiana, are aspiring actors who meet in New York and soon nudge out Hank's live-in hometown girlfriend, Eunice. Tom narrates the story as he looks back, 30 years later, when Eunice calls to tell him that Hank has died; she wants Tom to contribute to her audio history of struggling actors. As Tom recalls how he and Hank tried to make their relationship work over 16 intensive months, only to be estranged by new lovers, Rooney aspires to more than a purely erotic tale by exploring issues of sexual identity. Tom wrestles throughout the novel with his stereotypically masculine user approach to life, while Hank learns to take more control of the events that threaten to overwhelm him. They both fail, and it's the ambivalence of their feelings about themselves and each other that is most interesting here. Rooney's attempts at setting the mood of the times are halfhearted, however, including an anachronistic reference to Nixon's resignation. In the end, the book reads like a piece of melodramatic commercial fiction with a frustrated desire to be something else, never quite literary yet not steamy enough to be erotica.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harrington Park Pr
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0789006219
• ISBN 13: 9780789006219
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 214