cover image Blind Items

Blind Items

Matthew Rettenmund. St. Martin's Press, $22.95 (288pp) ISBN 978-0-312-19242-6

If not completely blind, love seems a bit shortsighted in Rettenmund's latest foray (after Boy Culture) into the gay milieu. Despite some repartee that strains for comic effect, enough one-liners find their mark to provide numerous chuckles--and the occasional flash of insight--throughout this amorous adventure. New Yorker David Greer is eking out a living editing gay porn magazines while his best bud, ""somewhat flamboyant queen"" Warren Junior, pens a gossip column replete with blind items that stop just this side of libel. David attends a TV network bash, dizzy with the prospect of glimpsing Alan Dillinger, the hunky star of a wildly popular beach series (think Baywatch) who's rumored to be gay. Not only do the men meet, but they embark on a tenuous affair--despite Alan's anxiety about coming out. Alternating with these close encounters are chapters centering on John Dewey, a ""pale and minor"" 12-year-old being raised by his grandmother in a New Jersey trailer park. This shy youngster, who has been told that his real father was gay, has increasing doubts about his own sexual identity. Becoming fixated on Granny's photo of a handsome 1920s movie star, John discovers that a Seattle film buff owns a supposedly lost film starring his idol. The boy, now 17, boards a cross-country bus to find the movie maven--Truitt Connor, an 81-year-old gay man who gives John a home. The eventual intersection of Rettenmund's two plot lines is far-fetched. Indeed, several elements here border on the improbable, but Rettenmund sprinkles the proceedings with an ultimately beguiling blend of fairy dust, fun and fantasy. (Oct.)