Welcome to the Gay Boarding School Book Review, where I dissect the niche genre that I love (and write within).
 
The magic of a boarding school story is its sealed environment. Unlike on a college campus, student movement is restricted, forcing characters into close contact. This is part of the basic appeal of war, prison, and boat stories, too, but boarding school is different, in that the institution isn’t so all-encompassing as to destroy the characters’ individuality. In fact, these schools often permit their teenage charges too much freedom, too young.

The gap between the students’ immaturity, and their lack of supervision, opens countless opportunities for drama.

And, you know: gay shit.
 
Today’s selection is Gore Vidal’s “The Zenner Trophy," a story about a boarding school that expels two boys over a homosexual tryst. It doesn't go where you'd think. It doesn't even start where you'd think. I will be talking about the story in full detail, so stop reading now if you want to explore “Zenner” on your own. It’s most easily found in the Clouds and Eclipses collection.

After the jump: writer bio, synopsis, and commentary...plus ratings for quality and personal enjoyment, and levels of sweet hot gay love*.

(*on a relative scale...explicit sex is uncommon in these stories, sorry!)

In the span of a week, this book has had three different covers. I wish I was kidding. But I'm hoping this is the last one.

My zeroteen-dollar budget meant making my own covers. This was a tall order, considering I have no design skills. I think my first attempt actually wasn't awful, in a “bold and graphic” kind of way. The trouble began when I hit publish*, and asked myself what genre I’d take this book for, were I an innocent customer. (*Why does it take hitting publish to suddenly clarify all the problems with a book?!)

Without hesitation, I thought, True crime.

...I write erotic romance.

In my ensuing panic, I took a crash course in Pixlr, as taught by google searches and button mashing. After several hours, I reached Cover #2: the “pulp” cover. This wasn't what I desired, from a marketing perspective; it was just what I could pull off with a primitive skillset. And to be fair, since Kicked Out is set in the ’70s, the concept wasn’t totally out of left field. At minimum, the book now looked like it was about sex and not murder. Success!

I left the cover alone for several days. But it sucks to not want to plug your own book because you don't want people seeing what it looks like! So yesterday, I resolved to try again. After a few hours of battling Pixlr, I'm happy to say a new cover is up on Kindle. While far from a triumph of design, it feels much more appropriate to the content of Kicked Out. I'm mostly just relieved I pulled something out of the bag on such short notice.

You know...three times.

I fell in love with gay pulp fiction a long time ago. Well, I'm not in love with actually reading it. Hoary genre tropes aren't my thing, no matter their vintage. But the cultural phenomenon of the M/M erotica pulp market? Its index of code words? The illustrations? Oh, yes.

"Twilight" is one of the common euphemisms for "SEXY GAY SEX SCENES," as the book at left demonstrates. You might also note the coded picture, which is one brown suit and an angle or two away from being outright gay porn. What's really fascinating is how un-coded other aspects of this erotica can be. The gay sex, that can't be proclaimed. But this story promises sexual assault galore, right on the front cover! Oh, dear.

One fascinating cultural inversion: lesbian pulp was always the big seller, in the mid-20th century. Straight women read it, queer women read it...and a ton of straight men read it. By comparison, erotic books about gay men were marginalized. Considered fit only for unapologetic perverts, perhaps.

Which might explain why the lesbian books are all allegedly about "twilight kittens" and their tender roommates, with cover illustrations so mild they could almost be shown in public. Or at least, they wouldn't terribly disturb a spouse stumbling across a misplaced book. Whereas the covers of erotic gay male books are much more...

...matter of fact.

But now, the market's been inverted. Gay erotic fiction and romance does big business because of its popularity among women, whereas sapphic gay romance novels are far less profitable (presumably because the once ubiquitous straight-male market has been cratered out by internet porn).

Kicked Out (Part I) is the first book of a series of erotic gay novels, and can be purchased here for 99 cents. If you have Kindle Unlimited, you can read for free! (Kicked Out is also free for everyone from 3/27 through 3/31.).

Kicked Out features...
🌶️ Spice levels of a ghost pepper
❤️‍🔥 Slow-burning emotional arcs
🔥 Hot yet realistic sex scenes
🤓 A spin on some classic tropes of erotic fiction and gay boarding school books (including jock/nerd, tutor/student, and straight to gay)

This gay erotic novel is the first of a five-part arc. However, the whole story's already been written, and is merely awaiting release, so...go ahead, get invested. No one's out to break your heart.

Still not sure? Check out the excerpt and blurb below.

Looking at Ender now, it was undeniable: I liked him. You have to hear that with the right inflection, you know, like a thirteen-year-old girl getting swoony after the big old seventh grade dance, or some shit: I liiiked him.

I cartoon-heart liked him, and I knew it.

God rest my poor hetero soul.

The winters are long at Napier Academy, an elite boys' boarding school. And as Spaulding Stockwell turns eighteen, he couldn't be lonelier. His best friend Lawrence is pushing him away, and forget finding a girlfriend in Nowheresville, New Hampshire. But when he catches the eye of the school's charismatic star athlete, George "Ender" Endicott, his life takes an unexpected turn. As Ender's tutor, Spaulding becomes embroiled in a steamy affair that jeopardizes all he holds dear.

He knows he's playing with fire...but Ender is impossible to resist.

*  *  *

Now for some behind the scenes talk, at the ol' gay erotic fiction factory.

That high-camp pulpy cover is a total shot in the dark, obviously. It makes about as much market sense as the book itself, which, well...the audience for highbrow gay erotic romance novels? There are dozens of us! comes to mind.

But more to the point, my budget was negative zero dollars, so there wasn't much choice. I figured, "Fuck it," fired up Pixlr, and did what I could.

Maybe free copies will prove enticing, though? As stated above, from 3/27 through 3/31, this novel is completely FREE on Amazon! Won't you make like ABBA and take a chance on my little love story?

Who knows? Maybe you'll even cartoon-heart liiike it.