Unnatural Quotations

This delightful escapade posits the 17th century buccaneers of the Caribbean basin as members of a self-contained, egalitarian homosexual community, an ``army of lovers'' fighting outside the law on behalf of the English crown. Hero Tommy the Cutlass goes to sea after learning the joys of sex from a ship captain, and quickly becomes a captain himself. The vessels are erotic fantasylands as well as loci for adventure, heroism and hard work. Hunter concocts a fictitious device, that he is merely transcribing an ancient manuscript in which Tommy tells his own story, and interrupts the narrative with mock-serious commentary supposedly penned from his home on the invented island paradise founded by Tommy when the buccaneers no longer had the blessing of the English monarch for their attacks on foreign ships. The clever frame enhances an imaginative, thoroughly enjoyable titillation, a first novel by a pseudonymous author. (May)