Saturday, November 25, 2023

booking freakboy: SENATOR SWISH by Aaron Thomas

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!
The cover of the book Senator Swish by Aaron Thomas shows a handsome dark haired man in a yellow evening suit mixing a drink.  An attractive blond woman is next to him wearing a light blue dress with an opened diamond shaped area in front, revealing an area of her bosom.  Several men mingle behind them, with a tagline that reads, He won the gay vote by a sin-slide.
You know what I’m like in bed, for God’s sake.  How can I be queer?” - Van Clayton 
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! 

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! 
The back cover of Senator Swish by Aaron Thomas is a yellowish-green with text that reads.  Senator Swish.  This is an original companion book.  Van was almost a senator when Jeff seduced him. The memory of lust was a shameful nightmare--and then blackmail threatened his career. and his man- hood.
“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 
In conclusion…
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
The cover of Death of a transvestite by Edward D. Wood, Jr. shows a man in drag sitting in the electric chair.
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My books on Amazon… viewAuthor.at/JohnLHarmon 
3 books by john L. Harmon.   Vision bent half blind poems.  Sturgeons the complete serials.  Dark excursions the complete set.

4 comments:

  1. Hmm... Methinks the author doth protest too much? ;) Great review of an apparently not-so-great book!

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    1. You might be correct and the book had its moments that made it worthwhile to read!

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  2. I laughed so much at this.. now must ask your casting in the movie version??

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    1. It is a delirious book and off the top of my head, I might cast Sharon Tate as Jennifer and Christopher Atkins as a fake Jeff!

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