Everybody Loves You: Further Adventures in Gay Manhattan

It's fascinating reading this book twenty years after it's been written, just to see how gay culture has changed over the last two decades, while many aspects, the pursuit of love and companionship for example, are exactly the same. Mordden is a wonderfully talented writer whose prose takes a bit getting used to at the start, as if you're reading Austin, Forster or Dickens. He also creates fiercely intelligent, witty, and culturally educated characters, so every chapter seems to be spouting off either a literary or operatic reference, or a musical playing on Broadway at the time. All this lends itself to a perfect time piece about being gay, growing older, and living life. Or as one character defends his argument to write it all down: "If we write about what we did, and how we felt, who we were... we will leave something behind."

I recommend this book (and the whole Buddies quadrilogy) to any reader who searches really good books. The writing style is superb, an exquisite mix of wit, irony, wisdom and poignant melancholy; the stories sparkle whit Mordden's superb narrative style. The comic, the insightful and the dramatic mix in an unique, original way. One of my favourite examples of this is "The Boffer", when Dennis Savage is debating whit Bud wether to attend a college reunion with his straight classmates, and the emotional and social factors entailed, while Little Kiwi displays, as a comical counterpoint, his very meagre skills as a trick magician. The characters are very finely detailed and lovely, the dialogue is worthy of the better Noel Coward. Read this and the entire series: Ethan Mordden is a very great writer,his stories New York's companion to St. Francisco's Tales of the City of Armistead Maupin.

Mordden develops the characters of the "Buddies" series even further in this book, which is a more connected, novel-like volume than the previous volume. The familiar faces are joined by a new one, Cosgrove, and while sometimes the actions surrounding this somewhat unbelievable character seem unbelievable in themselves, they lend the entire story a sense of humor and depth that has its roots in the relationship webs of the first two books. A definite must-read of gay fiction fans; of course, anyone who read the first two volumes could not abstain from reading this one to continue the story of the characters the reader has come to know and feel close to in the course of the previous two books.

I love Ethan Mordden's books. They are a window into a gay, if not happy, world. The central subject of this one is the waif Cosgrove, who eventually, not inevitebly, fits into the narrator's extended, adopted family. Some of the writing is lylrical, and some of the sentences simply embedded themselves into my mind. " I didn't care ..." This book, and the others of the "Buddy" series, are richly rewarding. Finest kind.