I've a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore

While the title might seem a little trite, it wasn't when the book was published and the vignettes told within are certain to hook the reader into reading and following the exploits of the members of this crew of buddies as they live their lives on the Manhattan-Fire Island axis of the 1970s. I caught myself laughing out loud on the train reading these stories, especially some of the actions of Little Kiwi; the interaction between the characters is so masterful that either Mordden is an incredible chronicler of his surroundings or has one of the most amazing imaginations of any fiction writer ever. The reader can picture the events vividly and they are believable. Highly recommended, and this book will hook you into reading the other three in the series, and hunger for more when they are completed.

Ethan Mordden's first entry in his decade-long series could easily have stood on its own as simply a collection of short stories, some of which share the same characters and continue situations. Fortunately for us, it is just the beginning, a somewhat modest introdction to his world. He lightheartedly tells of friendship and growing up and painfully yet without bitterness details the diffculty of maintaining a longterm gay relationship in a gay world that is still obsessed with sex and yet falling apart for that very reason. His characters are interesting, well drawn, and extremely well spoken always having the witty response and the snappy one-liner ready in any situation. Like real people, which no doubt they are, this group plans for the future, fears the present, and recalls its youth with fondness. I first read Ethan Mordden and "I've A Feeling We're Not In Kansas Anymore" when it was published in paperback in 1987. I was twenty and had grown up in a very rural setting and had moved to a fairly large city where here seemed to be something going on, but which I knew nothing about. I found the book at a local store and devoured it the same day having come across something I had never seen before. This wass the real life that I knew existed, but which seemed hidden and forcefully so. While it is not a book to educate the young gay male or the recently out gay male, it does tells not only of gay life in New York before AIDS, but also chronicles the universal establishment of a circle of friends that often becomes family in a most entertaining and literate fashion. Mordden is laugh-out-loud funny at times, culturally superior at times, and even lays on the line some of his great sadnesses and disappointments creating a widely multi-faceted picture of the life he knows and lives

After reading books by Felice Picano, Larry Kramer, and Andrew Holleran which in part take place in group houses on Fire Island, it seems that little is new. It isn't Morrden's fault necessarily since if you haven't read the other works, his would be quite fresh, and his characters do illuminate the nuances of relationships, be they gay or straight, more subtlely and more touchingly then those of most other writers. Still, one comes away yet again with the feeling that gay men can't be anything but "bitchy" although, at least, Morrden's aren't as shallow as most. Those who enjoyed Holleran's "Dancer From the Dance" shouldn't miss Morrden's version of the legend (included in this collection) of a man with god-like good looks who vanishes without a trace.