Country (Audible Audio Edition) Jeff Mann Randal Schaffer Lethe Press Books
Download As PDF : Country (Audible Audio Edition) Jeff Mann Randal Schaffer Lethe Press Books
Brice Brown sings about loyalty and broken hearts, the earnestness of being a proud Southerner, yet his popular country music lyrics are misdirection because Brice has kept hidden his attraction to men for all his life. But when a former lover - and band member - goes to the press with the truth, Brice finds himself sick of all the lies and returning to the sanctuary of his West Virginian hometown. The neighbors who used to be proud of the "local boy made good" turn on him. His record label cancels contracts, his wife files for divorce, and he finds himself disgraced and despondent.
But then Brice learns from a fan that there is a compound in central West Virginia run by a man who has helped troubled gay youth overcome their self-loathing. Brice takes a chance at redemption and finds the retreat in the woods. The owner, only a few years older than Brice, is a kind-hearted soul and does not turn him away and offers a friendly ear and comforting words. Conway Twitty once said, "Listen to advice, but follow your heart." And the man's nephew, Lucas, who serves as the handyman at the compound is a tempting young man, simmering with resentment at his past, angry at how he sees his future will be. And Brice thinks that Lucas is attracted to him but both men are hurting. Can they rise above the condemnations the world has given them and find something meaningful...together?
Country (Audible Audio Edition) Jeff Mann Randal Schaffer Lethe Press Books
The above quote from the book sums it up pretty well. Set initially in the latter part of the 1990's the story revolves around the homophobia and dread of being gay in the "country" back then. Small town bigots, people using Old Testament religion to justify their hatred make this a pretty harrowing read at times. But the two men survive even if scarred mentally and physically.To balance this is a vivid picture of life in the Appalachians. The good people, the scenery, the food. Boy, the food! I'd never heard of half the dishes they cooked or talked about, but I kept getting these urges to get up and eat!
I hope that times have changed and gay people are accepted better than they obviously were back then.
Coming from a different country where, even if homophobia exists it has rarely been this vitriolic or pervasive and where the press isn't nearly so invasive, I found it hard at times to connect with this story. Maybe the fact it was written in third person past tense rather than first person present contributed to my difficulty. The italicised thoughts jumped out at me rather than flowed as they usually do in Jeff's writing.
Once I got used to it, and the story was less in Brice's head as he stopped wallowing in his misery and started interacting more with others, the dialogue and action flowed better.
There were some great moments. The one of Annie calling down fire and brimstone on the preacher brings a smile to my face whenever I think of it.
If you've read his essays and stories, a lot of the themes will be familiar. Packed full of all the things that are important to Jeff, Country is a homage to the music and era it is set in. Makes you want to give credit to all those who survived it and those who were allies.
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Country (Audible Audio Edition) Jeff Mann Randal Schaffer Lethe Press Books Reviews
This man can write, no matter the subject material. His books about the Civil War are heart-warming and sincere. His sentences are clear and he does not waste words. I have enjoyed every book he has written. Buy them.
One of the most romantic books I have ever read! A tragedy, with redemption, and love lost and found!
4.5 stars. This is another really good M/M story by author Jeff Mann. Not nearly as dark and steamy as some of his others (i.e., "FOG") but rather just a good read about a famous country star who is exposed as gay which in the fanatically religious south puts him on the wrong side of the Bible and ruins his career, income and almost his heart. He's really saved when he meets Lucas (not until well into the book), a young man also ruined by gay bigots (including his mother), who was in prison for several years (and abused) and is trying to put his life back together. There is definitely an older/younger vibe to the story that warms the reader's heart.
Lots of religious references (both good and bad), a little steam, and a lot of soul searching which might lead one to believe this would get a little tedious, but it never did for me.
Being a songwriter and a singer, being physically a bit of a bear myself, and having spent a few years in Nashville and most of my life in the Appalachian Mountains (NC and TN), I identified a great deal with fallen star Brice Brown in Jeff Mann’s COUNTRY. I’m not sure how much experience Mann has with the inner workings of the Music City star machinery, but, when Brice Brown’s former guitarist and former secret lover Zac outs the singer as gay, what happens to Brown in the Music Row offices of his record and management companies rings true. The same holds for what happens to Brice through the initial stages of his attempted homecoming and subsequent encounters with country music fandom. He is one moment welcomed with the balm of love and the next confronted with the venom of fear. This continues, and he deals with it as well as he’s able to the last page.
Brice’s story is driven not only by his experiences but also by the people who surround him with expected hostility and sometimes surprising nurturing. While I never quite latched on to the character of Lucas (but liked him well enough), I found myself appropriately pleased or mortified to be in the company of all the other characters in COUNTRY. Brice’s sister Leigh, his longtime friend Wayne Meador, Lucas’s uncle Phil, the ladies of Radclyffe’s Roost, and several other minor characters are a delight; Lucas’s “Mommy,” her Reverend Davis, the four Pickens Road attackers, and assorted journalists and music business folk are terrors—and not exaggeratedly so, I think. Readers should welcome each of them as living representatives of the company that we all keep or suffer at one time or another.
Some picking up COUNTRY may feel the need to skim the male-to-male erotica that enters the story early and plays a significant part in the story’s language and action throughout, right to final page, but I encourage them not to do so. While often quite visceral, the many erotic passages are part of the genre, part of the experience of the novel. More importantly, I believe, this is the life of these characters. If possible (and it might not be for some), readers ought to try and see through the rough nature of Brice and Lucas’s lovemaking to the men who are desperate to become, for the first time in their lives, their true selves and to be truly in love. As readers, we need not strain to imagine what is at stake for them, as Jeff Mann’s COUNTRY has imagined it so beautifully for us.
In Country we see both the isolation of being in the closet and the isolation of being openly gay but despised by your non-gay community, cut off from your livelihood, physically threatened, and emotionally abused till you’re suicidal. The significance of the novel lies in the fact that in many parts of the world, even many parts of America, some people face this choice.
Outed country music star Brice Brown might not be welcome in some parts of his home state of West Virginia, but he eventually finds a welcome in the arms of Lucas, a young man initially ambivalent toward Brice owing to his own painful history.
The prose is photographically perfect, scene after scene so real, the intimacy so uncensored, you feel almost like an intruder. But then you remember that you were invited into this frank slice of life in two men’s lives, as they come to grips with each other and the world around them.
The above quote from the book sums it up pretty well. Set initially in the latter part of the 1990's the story revolves around the homophobia and dread of being gay in the "country" back then. Small town bigots, people using Old Testament religion to justify their hatred make this a pretty harrowing read at times. But the two men survive even if scarred mentally and physically.
To balance this is a vivid picture of life in the Appalachians. The good people, the scenery, the food. Boy, the food! I'd never heard of half the dishes they cooked or talked about, but I kept getting these urges to get up and eat!
I hope that times have changed and gay people are accepted better than they obviously were back then.
Coming from a different country where, even if homophobia exists it has rarely been this vitriolic or pervasive and where the press isn't nearly so invasive, I found it hard at times to connect with this story. Maybe the fact it was written in third person past tense rather than first person present contributed to my difficulty. The italicised thoughts jumped out at me rather than flowed as they usually do in Jeff's writing.
Once I got used to it, and the story was less in Brice's head as he stopped wallowing in his misery and started interacting more with others, the dialogue and action flowed better.
There were some great moments. The one of Annie calling down fire and brimstone on the preacher brings a smile to my face whenever I think of it.
If you've read his essays and stories, a lot of the themes will be familiar. Packed full of all the things that are important to Jeff, Country is a homage to the music and era it is set in. Makes you want to give credit to all those who survived it and those who were allies.
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