The Cure for Sodomy [Paperback] Shakin, Ken

A blistering novel about passion and liberation—with a decidedly bad attitude

One day on the unforgiving streets of New York City, you pass by an old man, a homeless bum, filthy and obviously more than a little crazy. A victim of electroshock therapy, he claims. The cure. For being gay. In a moment of small compassion, you invite him for a cup of coffee.

He begins to tell you his story, how he cruised through life, dancing the night away. And suddenly you realize he could be you, in a few years. Ken Shakin, author of the acclaimed Love Sucks (1997), walks the thin line between journalism and fiction, blending history and gossip into woven prose. His latest novel The Cure for Sodomy is about unending desire, the lust for release in a restrictive world. Two lives intertwine for a short cup of coffee and a long conversation, revealing a funny, absurd, tragic, moving story dedicated to the perverse nature of the human spirit.

Until 1967, anyone arrested for the crime of sodomy was eligible for a variety of state-sanctioned tortures ("cures"). Homosexuals were both forcibly and willingly drugged, electrocuted, castrated, and lobotomized. Not long ago it was illegal for two people of the same gender to merely dance together. Underground clubs were routinely raided by undercover police, in drag. Fast-forward to the twenty-first century and dancing is still against the law—without a license to dance. What is free expression in the age of terrorism? What happened to liberation, gay or otherwise? Ken Shakin's thoughtful and outrageous style brings to life some truly bizarre chapters of recent American history in an unforgettable New York story of crippled souls trying desperately to free themselves from earthly bondage, then as now.

From the book: The goal of psychiatry is to make sense of the patient, not for the patient to make sense. The good doctor is used to this sort of thing, the utterings of mental scramble. The treatments are very effective.

The patient denounces his perversion. He turns away from his homosexual deviation, away from defiling men, but not exactly towards defiling women. The miracle of religion has converted pervert into saint. The power of science has successfully neutered a sex fiend.

And: Back with the nuclear family I decide to have a Martini too and bring this ordeal to an end by passing out. After a few sips I begin to understand why they drink so many Martinis. The cocktail should be renamed heroin. I OD just in time for dinner. Fortunately my sister is not on a diet. She believes in eating right, the retro version. There's an abundance of everything on the table, low fat, a bit dry, but enough overweight body parts from dismembered animals to make up for the missing lipids. Fresh loin in nipple sauce with a side order of ear. No wonder the girls are bulimic. Bits of tongue and vagina in the giblet macaroni salad. Real food to chow down and soak up those Martinis. Or the other way around. Formaldehyde to preserve the remains.

In the process blood is shed. The chosen people are on combative diets. Atkins versus Ornish. My mother eats only protein and fat, my father only carbohydrates. The two of them have been in armed conflict for years, armed with steadily proliferating waistlines. Divorce is out of the question because they both like to drink. The Martini has saved their marriage and if installed in a warhead could just as well bring about world peace, all sides grimly hating each other but too bombed to do anything about it. A sort of nuclear winter, the whole planet swimming in gin and dry vermouth.

The Cure for Sodomy dares to ask insolent questions about civilized society. Why should a man suppress his most bestial desires? If the only cure for the mortal spasms is eternal nothingness, what holds the sodomite back from giving in to his deadliest pleasure? The answers are written between the lines of this caustic tale that adds insults to the injuries wrought by life and love.

Ken Shakin, a New York native, has a degree in piano from the Juilliard School. He lives in Berlin.