  Jerry Flack—a few years and pounds ago—enjoys living in the Rocky Mountains. He is shown here with his partner of fifteen years, George Summers, at the very top of Mt. Evans, one of Colorado's 54 mountain peaks that exceed 14,000+ feet. Jeopardy question: What is the highest paved road in the U.S.A.? The correct answer is the Mt. Evans Highway that winds its way up to 14, 264 feet. Amazingly, all of Mt. Evans belongs to the people of Denver. It is a Denver city park! |
In this issue, Jerry Flack reviews two books. We're devoting a separate page to each of them. Bear Like Me by Jonathan Cohen (see page 11 for a review of Side by Side) |
 Bear Like Me by Jonathan Cohen New York: Southern Tier Editions / Harrington Park Press, 2003. The author profile does not report that first-time novelist Jonathan Cohen of Vancouver, Canada was raised on an entertainment diet of “I Love Lucy” re-runs or was a frequent attendant at Marx Brothers film festivals, but it is clear that somewhere along the line in his 35 years, he mastered the art of conceiving and writing farce flawlessly. Cohen’s hero, Peter Mallory, if possible, even tops Lucy as he manages to move from one self-generated disaster to the next, and his over-the-top Bearanalia extravaganzas make the classic Marx Brothers over-filled and ultimately bursting shipboard closet of a room explosion scenario from “A Night At the Opera” appear limited in imagination by comparison. The basic story is simple. Peter Mallory is an upwardly mobile writer with a lucrative job at the gay society and youth-conscious, “Phag” magazine, a subsidiary of Queermedia Group, a periodical clearly patterned after such current fare as Genre and Instinct that caters to 19-23 year-old gay clients and where only one stereotype is acceptable: youth, youth, youth, perfect skin, bare chests, expensive tastes in clothes, watches, cars and exotic vacation destinations, plus vacuous writing that no one ever reads anyway. “Phag’s” models appear to be on loan from Abercrombie and Fitch catalogs assignments and without an ounce of extra weight and never, ever, under-any circumstances revealing any body hair. Waxed, shaven, buffed, blond, affluent and beautiful is the image of the “Phag” gay hero. When on the first page of Bear Like Me, Peter receives an summons to appear before the magazine’s black-hearted editor and publisher, the lying chiseler Chester Valentine, he knows the good life as he has known it is galloping to an abrupt ending. Not only will he be an unemployed writer in an overcrowded industry, he will no longer be able keep himself let alone his eye-candy but unemployed sponge of a lover (read terminal graduate psychology student) in the style to which they have become accustomed. Enter reliable friend Mac who challenges Peter to stop writing inconsequential fluff, the staple of “Phag,” and go underground to explore the burgeoning Bear Culture and write a definitive book about the growing the culture and mores of gay bears. With no job offers in sight, Peter acquiesces and exchanges one stereotype for another. Peter exchanges his Gucci, Prado, and Helmut Lang wardrobe for jeans, checkered flannel shirts, boots, and wine coolers for bottled beer. He exchanges his expensive designer hair style for a buzz cut. He allows his diet, attitudes, girth and expectations to be transformed, and finally allows his glorious facial hair and thick and lustrous chest pelt grow in their own, natural masculine ways. The conversion complete, Peter Mallory enters the Bear World incognito, not as Peter Mallory “Dan Karn.” Thanks to Mac’s urging Peter/”Dan” enters the bear ghetto as the newest bruin on the block, but becoming a member of the bear fraternity is not at all a smooth ride. In addition to the ever-present risk of being found “out” as a spy within the Bear Community, Peter loses his twink of boyfriend who objects to the scratchiness of his newly hirsute body. “Dan” as the newest bruin on the block visits one of the de rigueur bear gathering places, the appropriately named the “Bear Necessities” an all-purpose bear culture store containing “Bearaphrenalia” that truly astonishes Peter. Every bear necessity is on display from teddy bears complete with black leather outfits, bear flags, dildos with the requisite paw prints and that when picked up intone “Woof! Woof! Woof!” plus harnesses from size XXL and up, and with the largest set appearing to have been designed to hold a Clydesdale.” He also quickly learns the language of bears. “Woof” can be used as a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb. In brief, “Dan” is immersed into the world of bears that is completely foreign to his former life Peter once knew and took for granted. |
One of the joys of Cohen’s writing is his merging of the largely third-person narrative and the first-person bold accounts of the hero’s ever-growing knowledge of bears in his secret journal. An initial observations comes directly from Peter log: In some ways, gay men have it easier in terms of living the “gay lifestyle”; they can work at gay companies, eat at gay restaurants, shop at gay stores, and consume gay-only media. Bears, on the other hand, are a small minority of the gay community, and face one of two choices: create their own venues, or co-opt traditional bastions of heterosexual masculinity (think The Home Depot) for their own purposes. (p. 71) No longer recognized by the security guard at his former workplace, Peter takes on the covert job as a custodian and is clearly up to mischief as a means of seeking revenge on his vile former boss, Chester Valentine, a prime mover in the gay media world. Ever clever at undercover work, but a computer dunce, Peter works his machinations on the behind-the-scenes dirt at “Phag” magazine and most of Valentine’s illegal corporate activities. Along the way, he also meets super “A” –type bear, Ben Conway, a bear’s dream man, but Ben and “Dan” seem to be at each other’s throats as often as they place their tongues and other parts in the safe orifices as they make love. Nothing in the life of “Dan” is going according to Peter’s plan! Cohen may not have achieved a grand slam homer of a novel, but at least credit him with two triples. First, he has written a fast-moving, hilarious story of a gay man trying to negotiate a world brand new to him in a story rich in comic stereotypes of conniving, lying and greedy media moguls, vacuous twinks, bitter but righteous feminists, and a glorious parade of bruins that demonstrate that even within the gay bear ghetto that passes for a north woods forest, there is still both incredible sweetness and vile betrayal. Bear Like Me is a definite page turner and a quick read to boot. Moreover, Cohen’s novel, while fiction, is never-the- less fascinating in it spot-on depiction of the world culture of bears that make up a part of the larger gay community. Testimony to this latter virtue is found in the lavish praise Bear Like Me has received from many of the leading bear culture sociologists who have written nonfiction scholarly works on the bear culture as well as bear fiction such as Les Wright (Director, Bear History Project) and editor and Co-author of nonfiction culture studies of the gay bear subculture such as The Bear Book (Harrington Press, 1997) and The Bear Book II (Hawthorn, 2001); Ray Kampf, author of The Bear Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide (Haworth, 2000); and Ron Suresha who has written both bear erotica, Bearotica and scholarship that includes Bears on Bears: interviews and Discussions (both (Alyson, 2002). Bear Like Me is praised for its authenticity of bear cultural knowledge that Cohen slips into his fictional joyride. It would be unfair to spoil the ending for prospective readers, but just as Peter Mallory loses his shallow “twink” boyfriend, he achieves true love in the world of bears. At one point in Peter’s metamorphism into “Dan” and with specific reference to his added poundage, facial hair, and hairy chest, he questions his mentor and best friend Mac, “This will come off, right? After I finish the book, I can lose the weight, shave the goatee and the chest hair, go back to being me. Right?” Mac responds, “The weight will probably come off. But the way you think about things is probably going to be changed for good.” The Peter Mallory readers come to love and cherish at the end of his journey through the bear’s thick forest has a Goldilocks-kind of good feeling that permeates every funny, frantic, or comedic passage. Even when Peter tilts on the brink of disaster, Jonathan Cohen’s readers have come to trust him to provide him with a bear hug and send him safely and ever deeper into bear country. Any gay Goldilocks will want to take up permanent residence in Cohen’s deep and dark woods with Baby Bear’s handsome and hirsute big brother (who’s away at college in that other tale). Jerry Flack Denver, Colorado |