Venus as a Boy: A Novel - Hardcover

Sutherland, Luke

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1582343993 ISBN 13: 9781582343990

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA, 2004

Synopsis

In a small flat in London, a young man is turning to gold. But before he dies, before his skin and eyes and tongue harden into a golden death mask, he wants to share the amazing story of his life. Born and raised on the barren Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland, his childhood is a brutal one, devoid of tenderness. It is a miracle when he meets Tracy, falls in love, and discovers his true gift: the merest touch of him is enough to induce visions of angels and orchids. The physical heights he is able to reach-and to which he can bring others-go far beyond any normal sensual pleasure. Armed with this inexplicable talent, he makes his way to London, where he falls in with a group of teens forced to make a living on the street.

Luke Sutherland's modern-day myth about the power of love veers from stratosphere to gutter, from visions of heaven to the all-too-mortal yearning for even one glimpse of it. With Venus as a Boy Sutherland has written a moving, poetic novel that manages to imbue the harsh realities of life on the street with a mesmerizing and ethereal beauty.

About this title

About the Author

Luke Sutherland grew up in the Orkney Islands. He is the author of Sweetmeat, and his first novel, Jelly Roll, was shortlisted for the 1999 Whitbread First Novel Award. He has never before been published in the U.S. He is also known for his musical collaborations with bands such as Mogwai and Long Fin Killie, and for his personal music project, Bows.

Reviews

After a hard life punctuated by moments of beauty, a young man finds himself turning to gold in this gritty and sometimes gorgeous novel, Sutherland's third but his first published in the U.S. D grows up in Scotland's Orkney Islands, a stark, treeless landscape of "more rabbits than people. And more importantly, no police." Tormented by his schoolmates ("shitty little two-faced bastards") but friends with almost all of the girls, D, along with his first "soul mate" Finola, is brutally beaten. Later, palling around with the same tough who thrashed him, he turns two-faced himself—tormenting a black boy and betraying "the people who mattered" most. But he also discovers his amazing gift: he can give people sexual pleasure unlike anything they've previously experienced. Tracy, his first love, calls him Cupid; D himself sees visions of stars and angels. When Tracy refuses his proposal of marriage, D leaves Orkney and becomes a hotel dishwasher, where he begins loving up anyone—male or female—he encounters. "I got fond of bringing folks to their knees," he says. Those he touches weep with desire and release: "Healing hands. The Second Coming. God's gift. I've heard it all." But can D—who goes by Désirée in drag—find true love in his own harsh and drug-addled life? Alt-musician Sutherland is a cultural darling in the U.K. (Jelly Roll, his debut, was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award), but American audiences may find that as the book progresses, the sublime inches toward the merely sensational.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1582343993
• ISBN 13: 9781582343990
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 124