All Or Nothing

The All Trilogy #2

by Dirk Vanden

You met him first in I WANT IT ALL – Bill Thorne, the mechanic from the local gas station: “tall, muscular, dark-haired, and hung like a small stallion” – out in the dark alley behind Red’s Bar and Billiards, in Gorman, Colorado, where he and 12 other drunken ranch-hands and cowboys raped a hitch-hiking Queer. As a result of the rape he lost his best friend, and discovered something about himself that he’d never suspected.

Genres: M M Romance, Gay, Erotica

103 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

I was born on May 7, 1933, in Roosevelt, Utah, but grew up in a small neighboring town called Vernal, high in the Rocky Mountains, near the Colorado border, on old Highway 40. I grew up as "The Best Little Mormon Boy In The Whole Wide World," but defected at age 16 when I discovered I was "Queer," and my Bishop told me I was an "Abomination in the sight of God" and would burn in Hell forever if I didn't repent. Obviously I didn't repent. Eventually - when ALL IS WELL was published, in 1973 - I asked out of the LDS church because I was Gay, & sent them a copy of ALL IS WELL - & my wish was granted without protest. I am now, officially, NOT a Latter Day Saint!

During college at the University of Utah, I wrote my first "Gay Novel," "TO THEMSELVES UNKNOWN," & dared to submit it to a creative writing seminar, the summer I graduated. "One of the best first-novels I've ever read," said Albert Guerrard, a then-famous novelist & teacher of the seminar. "Unfortunately, its subject matter is homosexuality, which severely limits its publication possibilities. You could try one of the porno-houses, but I hope you won't have to do that. It would spoil a good book." That was 1958.

A professional agent at Curtis Brown spent a frustrating year, trying unsuccessfully to find a publisher. Finally, in desperation, I sent TO THEMSELVES UNKNOWN to Greenleaf Classics in San Diego, and it ended up being published as a "Fag-Hot" called "WHO KILLED QUEEN TOM?" GL's addition of "hot fag-sex" to my sensitive self-examination definitely ruined it, for me, at least.

The rest of my story is on my personal website. Please first visit DirkVanden Dot-net, not DirkVanden dot-com. Three of my books are still available at the dot-com address. All of my titles are listed here on Amazon. Some are listed as "Not Available." I'm in the process of converting all my books to Kindle and am searching for a copy of WHO KILLED QUEEN TOM? From Greenleaf Classics Pleasure Readers, 1969. From time to time the originals are listed for sale on Amazon. Two here now have 5-star reviews. I WANT IT ALL & ALL IS WELL.

My new novel: "ALL OF ME (Can You Take All Of Me?)A Gay Mystery," has just been published by Rosedog Books, in POD Paperback, or various e-formats on RoseDog's Yahoo bookstore. It is also now available on Kindle and as a cheaper paperback on the Amazon-Prime program -- free shipping!

Reviews

[A.M. Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another vivid telling of a man coming to terms with his sexuality. Very well written and very authentic, emotionally and historically. I'm not an officionado of the 'Tenderloin' district but I recognized the LA he describes.

If you like hot sex this book is what I believe they used to call a 'stroke' book? The sex is a little rough here and there and there IS a rape scene referenced. It's an integral part of the protags motivation, so it didn't bother me too much, but it is definitely written to turn on the reader, so it may not be everyone's cup of tea.

Oh, an recreational drugs are used quite liberally throughout the story. It really is the pre-AIDS California bar scene.

The author is an artist and when I checked out his website, I saw that he had painted the murals and paintings that hung in a few bars here and up north. In the books, he describes bar art in detail and I found myself wondering if he is describing his own work, a friends, or things he would LIKE to have seen.

Does anybody know? The painting he describes in the Collosseum was before my time, I think.

[A.B. Gayle · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's something about books written about gays in the preAIDS days. I often wonder how guys today view the orgies with their total disregard for safe sex. Do they feel envious?

"All or Nothing" is a parallel book to "I Want it All" The first chapters cover the same territory but seen through different eyes.

Dirk Vanden hasn't written a romance, more the observations of a guy coming out in that era. Being a painter himself, Dirk has a very observant eye. He remarked to me in an email "My head works differently somehow. I see “more” than other people. I don’t know what that means. I’ve always thought of it as “paying attention.” Here's an example:

They were all fascinating to watch—the way most of them tried to look so casual; they really worked at it, leaning against the wall, or the bar, or the pool table in the alcove, in just the right stray gleam of light to show off their “baskets.” (I learned many new words that night.) They were posing in every sense of the word—some of them not just for a possible “trick” but for themselves; I got the feeling that if anything happened to disturb the pose, they wouldn’t be able to function until they got back into it.

Once again, he is also not afraid to make some statements about being gay and what it means:

At any rate, I learned that night that there were almost as many “types” as there were gay men. Apparently something had changed since I’d first heard about “fairies.”

and remember this was written back in the seventies.

He has some interesting takes on marriage too:

Maybe someday the laws and ideas about marriage will change also, and when that happens, maybe it won’t be impossible to have both a wife and a family and a male lover-friend, all at the same time.

and earlier in a description that parallels his own relationship with his partner who died in the AIDS epidemic

“Gay marriages just don’t work, Bill. The only ones that do are where they’re not really lovers, you know? Not in the sense of a husband and wife at least. They’re friends. Each one does his own thing for sex, but they live together as friends.

This is backed up by his thoughts about why his marriage didn't work.

(the) part of the female personality that, to me, made females unattractive—a blind preoccupation with two people getting together in a “marriage” and devoting their entire lives to it.

In some ways this book is years before its time. His website describes the way he was treated by his publisher and one wonders how he would have been received if he submitted something like this to Dreamspinner Press or even MLR.

Once again, for those who are interested in what it was like being gay, books like this are a great way to find out and get an authentic picture not a stereotype.

[Don Bradshaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Mr. Vanden for another awesome story. Bill Thorne's life took a somewhat darker road after the gang rape. Alcohol and drugs led him to the bear community in L.A. and eventually San Francisco. Through choices of his own, Bill wound up in the brotherhood of fisting or FBI. I enjoyed the way that Warren's and Bill's lives overlapped and helped them grow. Again, this is not a romance but a full on story of self-discovery in pre-aids USA. Best read as a series.