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Testosterone: A Novel
Dean Seagrave was having an extraordinary day. All his belongings just went up in smoke, and he's tooling around Los Angeles in a rental car with a handheld tape recorder. The police are on his trail for assaulting an old woman outside a grocery store, or so he was just told by the man in a wheelchair he attacked at Venice Beach. "He's an emotional serial killer," he says, explaining his frenzied quest for Pablo Ortega, his lover, who disappeared one night going out for cigarettes. But what bothers Dean more is Pablo's connection to a cult, all the disappearing animals, and the story about torture in Chile. Problem is, Dean might be crazy. Or everyone might be lying. But now Dean has a machete (because the chainsaw made too much noise), and he just found Pablo. James Robert Baker is the author of four other Tim & Pete, Boy Wonder, Fuel Injected Dreams, and Right Wing (published on the Internet). His sixth novel, Testosterone, will be published by Alyson in October 2000. On November 5, 1997, he committed suicide.
200 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
May 1, 2019
James Robert Baker's posthumously published novel is the second of his books that I've read. I co-released his first and only movie, Blonde Death (directed under the pseudonym James Dillinger). Testosterone shows growth as a writer since his first book, Adrenaline. They both have a wonderful sense of pop culture, throwing around all kinds of references that I mostly understand, making me think that it would have been really cool to hang out with James in life. But he died when I was 14.
Testosterone plays with the first-person narrator device in a way that was very pleasing to read. I'd love to experience an audiobook version of this novel. Because the perspective limits the words to the thoughts of the main character, there is a lot of risk for interpreting the character's opinions as the author's opinions. I'm sure there were plenty of readers offended by the character. Luckily for him, the fellow dubbed by media as "the last angry gay man," James didn't have to answer to anyone for this book. Sadly for us, that made it his last.
There is a film adaptation, which I will be watching soon, just to see what that's like. I know how James shot his own words because of the VHS blessing that is Blonde Death, so it will be interesting to see how someone else interprets his mad genius.
Testosterone plays with the first-person narrator device in a way that was very pleasing to read. I'd love to experience an audiobook version of this novel. Because the perspective limits the words to the thoughts of the main character, there is a lot of risk for interpreting the character's opinions as the author's opinions. I'm sure there were plenty of readers offended by the character. Luckily for him, the fellow dubbed by media as "the last angry gay man," James didn't have to answer to anyone for this book. Sadly for us, that made it his last.
There is a film adaptation, which I will be watching soon, just to see what that's like. I know how James shot his own words because of the VHS blessing that is Blonde Death, so it will be interesting to see how someone else interprets his mad genius.
October 6, 2018
Did I enjoy reading this book? No.
Am I glad that I finished this book and didn't give up? Yes.
Was this book for me? Probably not.
Am I glad that I finished this book and didn't give up? Yes.
Was this book for me? Probably not.
July 10, 2020
IJust moved to a new apartment, and, as expected, I have to go through my book collection and decide what to keep and what to donate. Kind of like burning sage whenever one moves to a new place, my husband has me purging "unnecessary stuff:" "because the things we own ends up owning us." Something like that.
Anyhow, I came across this book and wondered, "is this a keeper?" Hmmmmm
...I don't know. I first read this book in 2001 and at that time, I just got out of a horrible relationship, so I could sort of identify with the jilted lover out for blood. I remember several flashes of the story, like the unrealiable narrator, the search for the dreaded ex, the Jesus and Mary Chain references, the unfiltered sex passages, the fear of AIDS, cult rituals, and, of course, the ______ ______. But, I don't remember if I actually liked the book. So, I decided to reread it to make sure.
Clearly, the book must have been therapeutic for me at the time, it's madness and violence sufficient enough for my troubled soul. But, ultimately.... meh. The book is fine. I've either become too jaded and desensitized, but I don't find the story shocking. I do find the derogatory slang troubling, but I think that the language only serves to validate the protagonist is an amoral character. Neither guided by good or evil, the narrator _______ his _______ out of satisfaction, his Id the impetus that swings the machete and pulls the trigger. Sounds like our world- nurtured on chaos.
Anyhow, I came across this book and wondered, "is this a keeper?" Hmmmmm
...I don't know. I first read this book in 2001 and at that time, I just got out of a horrible relationship, so I could sort of identify with the jilted lover out for blood. I remember several flashes of the story, like the unrealiable narrator, the search for the dreaded ex, the Jesus and Mary Chain references, the unfiltered sex passages, the fear of AIDS, cult rituals, and, of course, the ______ ______. But, I don't remember if I actually liked the book. So, I decided to reread it to make sure.
Clearly, the book must have been therapeutic for me at the time, it's madness and violence sufficient enough for my troubled soul. But, ultimately.... meh. The book is fine. I've either become too jaded and desensitized, but I don't find the story shocking. I do find the derogatory slang troubling, but I think that the language only serves to validate the protagonist is an amoral character. Neither guided by good or evil, the narrator _______ his _______ out of satisfaction, his Id the impetus that swings the machete and pulls the trigger. Sounds like our world- nurtured on chaos.
July 13, 2009
Originally reviewed for Uniquely Pleasurable:
The late James Robert Baker is definitely an acquired taste and, while a cult author, he has certainly had his fair share of detractors. A self-described anarchist, Baker’s literary career was deeply informed by his Long Beach, California, roots, the rise of the AIDS pandemic, and the staunch Republican refusal to react–let alone accept–the devastating reality of that disease. Baker has been called “The Last Angry Gay Man,” a racist and an irresponsible writer, claims some still hold to be true. While I can certainly see where the claims come from, when one looks deeper into his body of work and his background one has to question the negative assertions and affirm the former. Baker was an Angry Gay Man and his fiction reflects it in its brutality, dark humor and deeply satirical nature. If one simply looks at the surface of his works one would see why he was called irresponsible and a racist and one might even believe it. But what one could never call Baker was “safe.”
Testosterone was published posthumously–Baker committed suicide in 1997 at the age of 51–and is a bit of departure. Instead of his usual prose style, Baker employed the literary conceit of having the narrator, Dean Seagrave, dictate the entire story into a hand-held tape recorder as he travels around Los Angeles in search of his former lover, Pablo Ortega. Each of the extended chapters is one cassette tape, and as the story progresses we see Seagrave descend into madness….or do we?
Seagrave is looking for the man who jilted him, a lover who simply vanished one night without a word. He’s wounded and pissed off and on a mission: “I’m not Jesus. I’m not a magician. I’m just a f*g with a gun who needs a chainsaw.” Who hasn’t been jilted? Who hasn’t wondered why they were left behind when the lover hasn’t given you a clue? Who hasn’t begun to discover little secrets about their former lover, the things they never wanted or needed to know? That’s the question, and as Seagrave is told little bits and pieces about Pablo from others he encounters on his journey, a picture of a completely different man emerges.
While some have criticized the use of the tape-recorder device in the narration, for me it works perfectly. We get a stream of consciousness narration, sometimes rambling and sometime succinct and to the point. We are easily transported into Seagrave’s mind. We like him because we are him, his mind working as our minds often do, jumping from topic to topic, influenced by the things we see and hear and smell. We quite easily identify with this man; we feel the pain that is driving him. We want the answers he wants. And as piece by piece the stories of Pablo are told, we believe right along with him. Because believing is easier than admitting we might have been naive, that we ourselves are responsible for our own choices and actions in life, that we are victims.
What Baker also does brilliantly with this conceit is take us along with Seagrave’s descent. What starts off as a deep desire just to want to know the truth quickly turns into a dark obsession. The things were learn about Pablo are extreme, unbelievable. But because Baker has ensconced us in Seagrave’s mind, we want to believe. We need to. The result is a delicious dichotomy…Pablo can’t be all these things…but it certainly explains a lot if he was. It is, really, quite brilliant because we as the reader can’t tell is Seagrave is slowly going insane, or if Pablo really is the heinous man.
Now, Seagrave also uses some hateful, racist language in his search. It is uncomfortable and brutal language, and here is where one can see why Baker was sometimes labeled a racist. But here also is where, if one really looks at it, we can find Baker actually examining racism in a way. He skewers the hypocrisy in Los Angeles’ multi-culturalism. Everyone in LA has a gay friend, or a black co-worker or a Latino lover. Sometime in the LA–as well as the LA gay community–multi-culturalism is sometimes wielded like a medal, a bragging right for the white majority so that they can feel good about themselves. “Oh, I have a ____ lover.” As if that gives one a free pass out of institutionalized racism. Here we have Seagrave, a man who had a Latino lover, who says hateful, racist things about the man he supposedly loved simply because he was hurt by this man. And as Seagrave chooses to believe the worst about this man, the racist language and actions is ratcheted up. Baker is peeling back the facade of muticulturalism and exposing the rotten flesh of racism underneath it. That’s what Bakers’ work to me is usually all about…ripping what seems to be apart to show us what is really beneath it all. This works especially well in this novel, because other than a few fleeting moments, Pablo Ortiz is a character we never really meet. He has been reduced to an object. A stereotype. The stereotype he apparently always was in Seagrave’s real eyes.
Most of all, Testosterone–for me anyway–is a fascinating study of obsesssion, about how we sometimes make ourselves so willing to believe, how we want to jump at being the victim because being the victim is sometimes comfortable, easier than examining ourselves. Testosterone is angry and brutal and horrific and hateful and deeply, darkly funny. It is not a book for the faint of heart. It is not a book that goes down easily. It is bold and brash and unapologetic in every respect. But for me, it is essential gay literature. And it is literature with unending layers to wade through.
The late James Robert Baker is definitely an acquired taste and, while a cult author, he has certainly had his fair share of detractors. A self-described anarchist, Baker’s literary career was deeply informed by his Long Beach, California, roots, the rise of the AIDS pandemic, and the staunch Republican refusal to react–let alone accept–the devastating reality of that disease. Baker has been called “The Last Angry Gay Man,” a racist and an irresponsible writer, claims some still hold to be true. While I can certainly see where the claims come from, when one looks deeper into his body of work and his background one has to question the negative assertions and affirm the former. Baker was an Angry Gay Man and his fiction reflects it in its brutality, dark humor and deeply satirical nature. If one simply looks at the surface of his works one would see why he was called irresponsible and a racist and one might even believe it. But what one could never call Baker was “safe.”
Testosterone was published posthumously–Baker committed suicide in 1997 at the age of 51–and is a bit of departure. Instead of his usual prose style, Baker employed the literary conceit of having the narrator, Dean Seagrave, dictate the entire story into a hand-held tape recorder as he travels around Los Angeles in search of his former lover, Pablo Ortega. Each of the extended chapters is one cassette tape, and as the story progresses we see Seagrave descend into madness….or do we?
Seagrave is looking for the man who jilted him, a lover who simply vanished one night without a word. He’s wounded and pissed off and on a mission: “I’m not Jesus. I’m not a magician. I’m just a f*g with a gun who needs a chainsaw.” Who hasn’t been jilted? Who hasn’t wondered why they were left behind when the lover hasn’t given you a clue? Who hasn’t begun to discover little secrets about their former lover, the things they never wanted or needed to know? That’s the question, and as Seagrave is told little bits and pieces about Pablo from others he encounters on his journey, a picture of a completely different man emerges.
While some have criticized the use of the tape-recorder device in the narration, for me it works perfectly. We get a stream of consciousness narration, sometimes rambling and sometime succinct and to the point. We are easily transported into Seagrave’s mind. We like him because we are him, his mind working as our minds often do, jumping from topic to topic, influenced by the things we see and hear and smell. We quite easily identify with this man; we feel the pain that is driving him. We want the answers he wants. And as piece by piece the stories of Pablo are told, we believe right along with him. Because believing is easier than admitting we might have been naive, that we ourselves are responsible for our own choices and actions in life, that we are victims.
What Baker also does brilliantly with this conceit is take us along with Seagrave’s descent. What starts off as a deep desire just to want to know the truth quickly turns into a dark obsession. The things were learn about Pablo are extreme, unbelievable. But because Baker has ensconced us in Seagrave’s mind, we want to believe. We need to. The result is a delicious dichotomy…Pablo can’t be all these things…but it certainly explains a lot if he was. It is, really, quite brilliant because we as the reader can’t tell is Seagrave is slowly going insane, or if Pablo really is the heinous man.
Now, Seagrave also uses some hateful, racist language in his search. It is uncomfortable and brutal language, and here is where one can see why Baker was sometimes labeled a racist. But here also is where, if one really looks at it, we can find Baker actually examining racism in a way. He skewers the hypocrisy in Los Angeles’ multi-culturalism. Everyone in LA has a gay friend, or a black co-worker or a Latino lover. Sometime in the LA–as well as the LA gay community–multi-culturalism is sometimes wielded like a medal, a bragging right for the white majority so that they can feel good about themselves. “Oh, I have a ____ lover.” As if that gives one a free pass out of institutionalized racism. Here we have Seagrave, a man who had a Latino lover, who says hateful, racist things about the man he supposedly loved simply because he was hurt by this man. And as Seagrave chooses to believe the worst about this man, the racist language and actions is ratcheted up. Baker is peeling back the facade of muticulturalism and exposing the rotten flesh of racism underneath it. That’s what Bakers’ work to me is usually all about…ripping what seems to be apart to show us what is really beneath it all. This works especially well in this novel, because other than a few fleeting moments, Pablo Ortiz is a character we never really meet. He has been reduced to an object. A stereotype. The stereotype he apparently always was in Seagrave’s real eyes.
Most of all, Testosterone–for me anyway–is a fascinating study of obsesssion, about how we sometimes make ourselves so willing to believe, how we want to jump at being the victim because being the victim is sometimes comfortable, easier than examining ourselves. Testosterone is angry and brutal and horrific and hateful and deeply, darkly funny. It is not a book for the faint of heart. It is not a book that goes down easily. It is bold and brash and unapologetic in every respect. But for me, it is essential gay literature. And it is literature with unending layers to wade through.
March 17, 2025
I read this book a long time ago and loved it with a passion. It is, along with his other novels, on my to buy list. I thought it wildly over the top and funny and though review it properly I have no hesitation in awarding five stars. I will be reading and review this novel properly soon.
February 20, 2018
Read from paperback copy.
October 4, 2021
Testosterone by James Robert Baker is highly unpleasant, but very, very good. While not his best, it is still an excellent novel in its own right.
June 19, 2022
Grimy in the best way a product of its time
May 8, 2009
Testosterone burns with a frantic energy that is difficult to explain. Told through a series of audio tapes instead of chapters, the story burns rubber from page one and skids to a frightening, abrupt stop at the end.
The narrative, as told through the voice of Dean Seagrave as he drives through LA in search of Pablo Ortega, has a stream of consciousness feel as if I was reading a lunatic's rant, and I possibly may have. It's remains a bit unclear by the close of the novel. At first I started off sympathizing with Dean, I mean who hasn't been uncremoniously dumped? Then as event by disturbing event unfolds I began to question Dean's motives. Does he really have to kill Pablo? Is Pablo really involved in palo mayombe? Does Dean have to take such drastic actions to get answers? By the end I was unsure if should hate Dean, feel sorry for him or if everything that he told me was just an overactive fever dream of a drugged up obsessive mind. That's what makes this such a brilliant novel. I couldn't put it down.
Definitely one of the bleakest of Baker's novels, possibly influenced by Baker's state of mind when he wrote this but it's also one of his best as well
The narrative, as told through the voice of Dean Seagrave as he drives through LA in search of Pablo Ortega, has a stream of consciousness feel as if I was reading a lunatic's rant, and I possibly may have. It's remains a bit unclear by the close of the novel. At first I started off sympathizing with Dean, I mean who hasn't been uncremoniously dumped? Then as event by disturbing event unfolds I began to question Dean's motives. Does he really have to kill Pablo? Is Pablo really involved in palo mayombe? Does Dean have to take such drastic actions to get answers? By the end I was unsure if should hate Dean, feel sorry for him or if everything that he told me was just an overactive fever dream of a drugged up obsessive mind. That's what makes this such a brilliant novel. I couldn't put it down.
Definitely one of the bleakest of Baker's novels, possibly influenced by Baker's state of mind when he wrote this but it's also one of his best as well
Read
November 23, 2014I can't finish this one. I'm one of the few people who saw the film version and actually liked it, but the book just isn't working for me. The narrator annoys me and I'm just not interested in him or Pablo or his fantasies about Andy Garcia, so I'm bailing on this one.
August 7, 2011
Loved this man's writing
Read
November 4, 2011Disturbing!
June 2, 2012
Fast paced and highly readable fun, though still pretty dark. It stood out for me as an unusually lean read. It got right to the point and the point is sex, action and violence.
August 25, 2012
Crazy story ... Sometimes fun ... Sometimes shocking ...
February 15, 2008
Brilliant.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews