Massage

This novel blew me away. I'm a straight woman and yet I found this prose so sensual and engaging. Flesh -- like his name says -- really understands the workings and desires of the flesh. a must read. He's truly original as a stylist, as well - I can't wait to read his next novel!

Take a trip into the wonderful world of Randy. Henry Flesh allows the reader to experience the life of Randy, a gay erotic masseur who is drawn to abusive men. The reader is introduced, in amazingly haunting detail, to Randy's lovers past and present. Even Randy's memories of the evil pedophile Mr.Hewitt is so interesting that one finds it hard to put the book down. Randy's client Graham Mason is a deliciously demonic and skillfull torturer. We see Randy in the worlds of his youth, drugged insanity, hanging with the drag queens, AIDS (described by Flesh as "the sweetness") and even (Surprise!) sobriety. I took this book everywhere I went until I had finished it. I felt as if I were experiencing Randy's life and living in New York City's East Village. "Massage" is extremely well written, Flesh has a way of making the most despicable characters some of your favorites and Randy is just plain loveable - I couldn't help wanting to just give him a hug.

"Massage's" prose is crystal clear, sparse and vividly evocative through it's precisely selected detail; it's seemingly effortless style and selective focus reminded me of the poignant clarity of Camus. Without a trace of didacticism, Flesh draws psychological and cultural connections that ring true. Connections that are unfortunately missing from most contemporary fiction. This author respects his reader. His main character, Randy, makes his way through the pages like one of Hardy's protagonist. I found "Massage" engrossing and moving in surprising ways.

As do the stories of Salinger, Steinbeck, and the plays of Tennessee Williams, Flesh's Massage speaks through its ability to enable the reader to identify deeply with lost innocence, with corruption and with that which remains incorruptible, to open doors wide to illusions, to that place we see but cannot penetrate. Although Massage is set in an underworld that is fascinating and richly detailed in and of itself, even down to the subtleties of speech of very odd, though familiar characters...we are drawn into this world to understand what is missing...not simply to revel in the bizarre, the fascinating, the richness of "oddity" (which would be a more obvious, though hardly insignificant accomplishment) but to see beyond into emptiness, into what is longed for. That, to me, is what makes it worth it. Yes, this book is all that!The beauty and simplicity of Randy's yearning mixed with his unsettling passivity, his pathology, draws us into Massage from the start. In the end, we are disturbed and unsettled by his journey...but richer for having gone there, for having clearly understood that what can seem foreign is only so on the surface, and is really quite familiar to all from a certain point of view, startlingly so. The characters, ranging from the horrifying to the hilarious, seem oddly connected with each other, as if a projection of Randy's, Holden Caulfield-like. I came away feeling like a "fly on the wall" as the characters tried to relate through a profound sense of alienation, overcoming pain by eroticizing it or "making it feel 'good'"...drawing out a sweet, even "innocent" connection at best and bitter emotional violence at worst. Even so, the deluded, "lost" feeling of this world engendered a sense of muted anxiety, a dreamlike quality to the day-to-day existence which allowed the richness of perception found in dreams to creep in and underpin the events. The narrative style has an angelic, Cheever-like presence. I was constantly reminded of 19th century novels, particularly of Dostoevsky's, where one is reassured by the narrator's voice of some sweetness, an unidentifiable, subtle presence...trust, a reassurance found in tone. This is not to say that the whole thing doesn't have a dark sensibility...the ending is quite shocking! Massage is unexpected in many ways and deceptive in that it delivers on many levels. Overall, it is enjoyable, challenging, frustrating, shocking, amusing, moving, reassuring and unsettling. I recommend it highly.

Henry Flesh's Massage is about an erotic, intoxicating game of Russian roulette. The single bullet is AIDS or otherwise eerily named "the sweetness." Flesh should be commended for his bravery to venture untrodden territory thereby creating a masterpiece. Randy's harrowing journey into the underworld is a classic one.