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Duke University's Rare Book, Manuscript and Special Collections Library recently included Tinselfish in its Drewey Wayne Gunn Collection of Gay Male Mysteries and Police Stories.

Tinselfish offers a look at gay West Hollywood in the early 00's. Cafes, bars, and club nights which no longer exist are mentioned and described. The two-volume set is written as a series of screenplays for a TV detective series, but they are written to be read as a cohesive novel and not as screenplays composed in the industry's abbreviated, codeworded style. Book 1 includes a detailed, extensively researched account of a closeted Amish farmer's difficult coming-out process in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in the 70's and 80's. It also includes a chapter/episode which focuses on the gay scene in Philadelphia around Walnut and 13th in the late 80's. Both books extensively reference classic films noirs of the 40's and 50's and highlight the encrypted gay subtext of many of those films. Several chapter/episodes explore homosexuality in traditional Arab and Persian cultures as well as the gay Arab-American experience in Los Angeles since 9/11. Each chapter/episode includes endnotes citing the books and screenplays referenced in the text. Other chapter/episodes explore Hollywood history and examine Intolerance, Clara Bow, Busby Berkeley, and Sunset Blvd. and the different film technologies and styles prevalent at each stage. A minor subplot in the novel involves tracking down ex-Nazis in South America in the years following WWII. A recurring theme is the dilemma of an actor trapped in a movie franchise he hates because the franchise does reasonably well at the box office.

Because the novel is written as a series of screenplays, it should be considered experimental fiction, an exploration of the one literary form reading or looking like the other. With the novel set in "Hollywood," the reader's Hollywood-insider experience is enhanced by going through the same reading process as an actor or director reading a screenplay. (As a compromise, the text is set in a Roman font rather than the standard typewriter font.) Another continuing theme is depression and its medications, and in the experimental vein, one chapter/episode presents an attack of severe depression as alternating time-lapse and slow-motion cinematography. The detailed descriptions of these effects allow the reader to envision what are otherwise exclusively visual techniques, as well as to gain insight into the emotional disruption of severe depression.

Tinselfish is not only an entertaining read, carefully written and exhaustively proofread, but is also educational and enlightening in its exploration of different cultures, regions, timeframes, topics, and genres.

Synopsis: After three decades of unwavering Amish faith, Zephaniah Stoltzfus contemplates the unthinkable: setting aside belief in God and living an honest life as an openly gay man. On his own in Philadelphia, he attempts to decipher the cryptic protocols of the outside world, and his nascent career in computer graphics pulls him abruptly "through the looking glass" to Los Angeles. Zeph soon finds himself the sidekick of a Bogart-quoting P.I. named O'Keefe and drawn into investigations involving murder, rape, blackmail, hacking, grand larceny, illegal gambling, prostitution, drug dealing and aggravated assault. Not exactly the peaceful rural life Zeph envisioned sharing with a lover on coming out. But life doesn't always follow the script.

For more information, go to http://www.carpecranium.com/tinselfish.