I said it was going to happen. I found a (sort of) reasonably priced copy of SENATOR SWISH and used my tablet to read each tawdry, trashy page!
Van Clayton is an attorney who is throwing his hat in a race to be Senator and hoping to marry Jennifer Parker, the love of his life. However, Jennifer isn’t ready to give up her career as a fashion editor at a top magazine. It’s 1968, so perhaps Jennifer has yet to hear how women can marry AND have a career. Anyhoo, Jennifer’s jet-setting career in the fashion world is taking her away for an extended period, leaving Van alone. Not for long though!
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| “You know what I’m like in bed, for God’s sake. How can I be queer?” - Van Clayton |
During Jennifer’s absence, her brother Jeff arrives in town. He has secretly quit college and taken a job as an instructor at a tennis school. Jeff resembles Jennifer quite a bit, which intrigues Van. Soon enough the tennis instructor is instructing the potential Senator in the art of man-on-man action! Is Van simply transferring his passion for Jennifer to her brother or does he swish both ways?
Oh, but wait…there’s more!
Things are going well between the two men until Van takes a trip to Washington D.C. to secure his bid to run for Senator. There he meets Alex Marshall, “a professional party-crasher and a good-for-nothing polo player.” Well, Alex wants to play more than polo with Van. Even though a certain part of Van wants to play, he refuses Alex’s advances. Then the refusal turns violent when Alex reveals he knows of Van’s tryst with Jeff. Van punches Alex, who hits his head on the way down.
Did Van kill Alex and what does Jeff know about this other man? What will happen when Jennifer returns and why does Jeff have a tie clip with the initials “W.R.” on it? I suppose since this book is out-of-print, I should just tell you the convoluted ending…
SPOILER ALERT
Jeff is really a man named Wayne Richards, who is Alex Marshall’s “roommate”. Together, Alex and Wayne devised this elaborate set-up to blackmail Van and because they both desired his manly physique or whatever. Jennifer ultimately saves Van’s “manhood” by returning and convincing Van to call their bluff. The blackmailers (Alex is alive) have trapped themselves because they could get arrested for engaging in homosexual activity, so they give up.
In the very end, Van meets the real Jeff and has to passionately kiss Jennifer in front of her brother. Is he trying to prove something to himself or is the author simply making it very clear that Van is a “real man” again? I suspect the latter, but I imagine Van will eventually have the real Jeff on the side because the possible future Senator straight-up enjoyed gay sex!
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| “Everyone has a little bit of that sort of thing in them. Some never let it come out. Some do. When it happens, it happens. That doesn’t mean it turns you into some kind of freak.” - Jennifer Parker |
Unlike DESIRE IN THE SHADOWS, I didn’t feel a connection to SENATOR SWISH. Oh, I enjoyed the convoluted plot. I even laughably rolled my eyes at the old “effeminate homosexual villain” trope. However, my disconnect may stem from broadly drawn characters and an extremely hetero-centric slant to the story. On more than one occasion, instead of calling the character “Jeff” or “the young man”, the author simply referred to him as “the f—“. I know it was 1968, but it was a bit jarring and makes me wonder where the author fell on the sexuality spectrum. Anyhoo, despite its problematic overtones, SENATOR SWISH was an oversexed (straight & gay), trashy page-turner that I’m glad I experienced, though the alliterative title and the amusing tagline are probably the best parts of the book.
Thank you for reading or listening to my half-blind words.
Freak Out,
JLH
P.S. Click the pic ⤵️ to learn about the book which started me down this rabbit hole of Vintage Gay Pulp Fiction…
My books on Amazon… viewAuthor.at/JohnLHarmon
