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Book Chat:

Day Of Confession &
Golden Globe

By Elizabeth Parker


Our headliner this month is the newest by Allan Folsom, "Day of Confession". It is a thriller of the type I love best; action-packed, lots of interesting characters, and a delicious villain or two. Its plot is incredible, a Cardinal in the Vatican who believes he is the incarnation of Alexander the Great, plotting economic power via mass-murder in China. Yet Folsom develops the storyline realistically, which enables us to suspend our belief.

The hero, Harry Addison, becomes involved when his brother, Danny, a Vatican priest, is killed in a bus explosion in Italy. When he flies to Italy to bury his brother, he is shocked to discover he is a suspect in the murder. We find out that the brother heard a guilt-ridden Cardinal's confession and he must be killed because of what he knows.

Of course, our villain must have a good henchman to do his dirty work. The Cardinal enlists Thomas Kind, a world-renowned terrorist, clearly modeled after Carlos the Jackal. Kind is slim, around 5'10", and a master of disguise. Midway through the book, he must escape a manhunt, and of course, how better than to become Julia Louise Phelps, a real estate agent from Sacremento? Julia is apparently a very attractive woman, as man after man flirts with her. Through a series of scenes, Kind makes his way from northern Italy to Rome in the guise of Julia Louise Phelps. Along the way a young policeman charged with looking for him flirts with the woman with a distinctive smile. A man who is too smart for his own good is killed while giving Kind a ride. Each incident shows how confident Kind is in his masquerade; flirting with each man such that there is no question of his femininity. Kind's masquerade is quite exciting, spiced up by his flirtateous manner.

The descriptiveness is average, with some elements of his disguise extensively discussed, while others, such as his hair, totally ignored. But because of the quality of the book, with this part added, I wholeheartedly recommend it for your reading pleasure. This isn't classic literature, but it is a lot of fun.


The next book is "The Golden Globe", by John Varley. Long-time mainstream transgender fiction readers know John Varley writes many Science Fiction stories and novels with sex change themes interwoven. He predicts a future we all look forward to, where sex changes are as common as cosmetic surgery today, and his characters commonly spend time as both sexes in many of his stories. In fact, one of those characters, Hildy Johnston from Steel Beach, appears in this novel.

This story is a change in that it involves an actor/conman, Sparky Valentine, who has had himself modified so that he can make complete cosmetic and physical changes to his body to appear as many different people. The book starts off with a bang, as Sparky is acting in Romeo and Juliet as Mercutio. As the play starts, the troupe discovers that the actress playing Juliet hasn't shown up. Sparky volunteers to take her part on as well, and manages to play both roles in a hilarious opening. His cosmetic changes involve some pain, and the quickness required forces him to pay a price for his chance at stardom.

Sparky's changes include the ability to turn his penis inside-out, which is fortunate, as in the Romeo and Juliet of the future, real sex is involved. He accomplishes this part of the role sucessfully, and even ad libs when his Romeo has trouble with impotency.

This opener had me convinced that this book would be a headliner, but the rest of the book proved to be a disappointment for transgender activity. It was quite an interesting and entertaining work of fiction however, much like the later work of Heinlein. At the denoument, there is a quick and quite unique crossdressing episode which I will leave to you to discover.


Several people have asked me for tips on how to obtain hard-to-find books. I've tried to cover mostly those which are easily available, but some are too good not to tell you about. Where do you go when you want to find that great book and your local store doesn't carry it?

I used to recommend Amazon.com, as I found several out-of-print books that way. But the process took over nine months, even though they promise 4-6 weeks. Several weeks ago, a kind reader, Rachel Sue Smith, recommended the MX Book finder to me. What a find! This site consolidates several online book companies, including Amazon, into one search engine. As a trial I located four books I'd been searching many years for. The search engine presented all copies of the book up to a specified limit for each site, including the condition and price. Each book is listed by a particular bookstore, some of which are set up online and some by mail only. I was able to choose those which took credit card orders and ordered each book. Each site gave me an immediate email confirmation. Three of the booksellers gave me immediate feedback that the book was available and would be shipped. One got back with me after a week and apologized, he'd been out of town, and yes, he had the book I wanted. I received two of them in 4-5 days, another in two weeks, and I'm still waiting on the fourth. Rachel Sue tells me that one bookseller took two weeks to respond, and that sometimes the databases are out of date. Both of us have found that the books arrive in the condition advertised. Rachel Sue feels, and I agree, that this is a more reliable way to get those hard-to-find books than the traditional book search services.

A big note of caution however. This site does not offer a secure ordering form. So if you choose to enter your information in this way(as I did), your number will be sent in the clear. This is an incredible find, but as always, buyer beware!

Of course, the best way to get currently available books is either at your local bookseller, or online through Barnes & Noble or Amazon. I've found that Barnes & Noble online is often faster than their own stores in getting bestsellers to you, and Amazon is good at offering an extensive selection for anything in print.


Finally, I am staging up my own web site thanks to the kind folks at TG Forum. It is nothing fancy, just my way of storing in an organized manner my own research into mainstream transgender fiction. So please stop by and tell me what you think, especially if you have any problems viewing information. So far I have only indexed my column reviews, and those lesser works which I've recommended to those of you on my mailing list. There are a couple of new entries. I will be actively incorporating everything I've researched into this site in the next several months however.

As always, your suggestions are more than welcome.


Bibliography

Folsom, Allan, "Day of Confession", Little Brown & Company, 1998, ISBN: 0316287555 (Hardback)

Varley, John, "The Golden Globe", Ace Books, 1998, ISBN: 0441005586 (Hardback)

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