I’m hardly on Roeder’s books, but I have just completed reading SOMEONE IS WATCHING, and feel it is the type of book that would have been great for me to read, if I were ten to fifteen years old, as I was at one time, and wondering if I was gay, and what I should do about it. What would the feelings be like? How could I avoid being harmed, hurting myself or others, and live with integrity. Instead, when I was young, I was reading Steinbeck and the Hardy Boys series, and frankly, as fine as Steinbeck is as an author, none of these books would give me the least insight into my sexual orientation -- being gay -- which would turn my life upside down.
Even today, there is little on TV that young gay people could relate to, like they could relate to feelings and situations in SOMEONE IS WATCHING. Also, many gays, like myself, do grow up in rural settings, and I really enjoyed reading about this in Roeder’s book.
The sex is less explicit in SOMEONE IS WATCHING than you’d find on Network TV or in most romance novels.
I agree with you on one point. I’ve always wished that books, gay or straight, didn’t have glib illustrations on the book jacket. Sometimes the author is not in control of what a publisher puts on the cover, and publishers will put whatever their marketing stats show makes a book sell the most.
Before Mark’s book, I read Hollinghurst’s THE FOLDING STAR. The cover illustration is fantastic on that book. I also preferred the book to Hollinghurst’s novel that won the Booker prize, which I’ve also read. Both are at the high end of the literature scale, up there with Kafka and Proust, so I wouldn’t recommend it to young people, unless they have very intellectual tastes. And oh, both his novels are much more explicit than Roeder.
To address what you wrote about grown men, writing about boys, when boys or younger authors should be writing about their own experiences. Well, children’s literature is not usually written by children either. When you are a kid, who is probably gay, you are hovering between a Brokebackish state of denial and concealment, or you are going through so much struggle and confusion in trying to understand your own orientation, that you can’t understand or see things clearly, until years later, when you are an adult.
I don’t know what the quintessential author is for writing the best books for teen gays, or straights to be reading. Seems like Roeder’s books are almost aimed toward that type of reader through, rather than adults (young or old) who are looking for an erotic charge.
SOMEONE IS WATCHING is a somewhat homespun ode to Tom Sawyer in its sense of camaraderie and adventure. Unfortunately, it lacks the wit and writing level of Mark Twain, but it certainly is right up there with a Hardy Boy book.
This site is pretty annoying with all of the popups (blocked, except I had to release my blocker in order to post), and my virus checker got two virus message while I'm attempting to post this. Well, not Roeder's fault, just the consequences of using a free discussion board thing from Bravenet. What a nightmare though.
