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A History of Barbed Wire
Winner of a Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Erotica! In intense, lyrical language, Jeff Mann’s short stories give us an array of tormented adulterous lovers, a kidnapper and his handsome victim, the sadistic ghost of a Confederate soldier, a yearning forestry student, an eager masochist, and a hairy biker. These tales explore the sex and psychology of BDSM and of bear culture, and most are set in Mann's native Appalachia, an area often mythologized as a place where the wilderness within converges with the wilderness without.
266 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 15, 2011
4 people are currently reading
115 people want to read
About the author
Jeff Mann
105 books89 followersJeff Mann’s poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in many publications, including Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Laurel Review and The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide. He has published three award-winning poetry chapbooks, Bliss, Mountain Fireflies, and Flint Shards from Sussex; two full-length books of poetry, Bones Washed with Wine and On the Tongue; a collection of personal essays, Edge: Travels of an Appalachian Leather Bear; a book of poetry and memoir, Loving Mountains, Loving Men; and a short fiction volume, A History of Barbed Wire, which won a Lambda Literary Award. He teaches creative writing at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 8, 2014
Jeff Mann is an excellent writer. No question of it. As Patrick Califia says in the opening words of his intro:
I've always been interested in uncovering men's fears and fantasies as knowing these gives a better picture of who they are. Jeff's are written here, plain to see.
Above all, this is a book about bears. Nowhere else have I really felt the essence of these big men. And not just big, hairy men with voracious appetites for food and drink, but also sex, especially the intense experiences brought on by the extremes of leathersex.
I deliberately skipped reading the introduction by Patrick Califia until I'd finished the collection as I didn't want to be influenced by anything other than Jeff's own words. However, Patrick does sum up what this essence is.
The last story was especially interesting from a writer's POV after having read Fog: A Novel of Desire and Reprisal
The two stories have very similar plots but just some slight shifts as far as goal, motivation and circumstance leads to a different take on the scenario. Yes, there are similarities. But the differences are what makes them both worth reading. Both are satisfying in their own rights. Both had me on the edge of my seat wondering how it could ever be resolved without something drastic happening to one or all of the characters.
That's what good writing is all about.
(Incidentally, I managed to buy this through All Romance Ebooks but it definitely shouldn't be shelved as romance even though there is a lot of affection and love in the true sense of the word)
Poets. They'll break your heart every time. But until then, the sex is amazing.I found it interesting reading this anthology after having read Jeff's essay in The Other Man based on something that happened to him in real life. He talks about being involved with "Another Man" even though he was in a committed loving relationship. This theme resonates through his stories. Having a lover who is a good, kind reliable person - but not kinky-and the way he got so aroused whenever he thought about being tied up and taken to his physical limits.
I've always been interested in uncovering men's fears and fantasies as knowing these gives a better picture of who they are. Jeff's are written here, plain to see.
Above all, this is a book about bears. Nowhere else have I really felt the essence of these big men. And not just big, hairy men with voracious appetites for food and drink, but also sex, especially the intense experiences brought on by the extremes of leathersex.
I deliberately skipped reading the introduction by Patrick Califia until I'd finished the collection as I didn't want to be influenced by anything other than Jeff's own words. However, Patrick does sum up what this essence is.
The last story was especially interesting from a writer's POV after having read Fog: A Novel of Desire and Reprisal
The two stories have very similar plots but just some slight shifts as far as goal, motivation and circumstance leads to a different take on the scenario. Yes, there are similarities. But the differences are what makes them both worth reading. Both are satisfying in their own rights. Both had me on the edge of my seat wondering how it could ever be resolved without something drastic happening to one or all of the characters.
That's what good writing is all about.
(Incidentally, I managed to buy this through All Romance Ebooks but it definitely shouldn't be shelved as romance even though there is a lot of affection and love in the true sense of the word)
October 10, 2014
4.25 stars
As I read this collection of short stories over a period of several days, I really enjoyed the characters pining for big hairy guys, mostly mountain men. Each was enjoyable, feeling like someone's ultimate fantasy. And then I reached the last story. This novella length tale of obsession and abduction kept me on edge, never knowing what might happen next. This one will haunt me for a while, which is a good thing.
The writing is wonderful and the emotions are deeply felt yearnings for something elusive and not easily explained. Domination and submission is a central theme through most of the stories, and ropes, hand cuffs, duct tape, ball gags (as well as many creative gags including malodorous jock straps) are prominently featured. There is one instance of water sports (sort of, don't want to spoil it), though I managed to see it coming and skipped over it, lol. I enjoyed learning what "bucked and gagged" meant as the author was very fond of this torturous bondage, using it in multiple stories.
Very different from the usual bdsm fare and I highly recommend it to all mm bdsm, and gay literature fans.
As I read this collection of short stories over a period of several days, I really enjoyed the characters pining for big hairy guys, mostly mountain men. Each was enjoyable, feeling like someone's ultimate fantasy. And then I reached the last story. This novella length tale of obsession and abduction kept me on edge, never knowing what might happen next. This one will haunt me for a while, which is a good thing.
The writing is wonderful and the emotions are deeply felt yearnings for something elusive and not easily explained. Domination and submission is a central theme through most of the stories, and ropes, hand cuffs, duct tape, ball gags (as well as many creative gags including malodorous jock straps) are prominently featured. There is one instance of water sports (sort of, don't want to spoil it), though I managed to see it coming and skipped over it, lol. I enjoyed learning what "bucked and gagged" meant as the author was very fond of this torturous bondage, using it in multiple stories.
Very different from the usual bdsm fare and I highly recommend it to all mm bdsm, and gay literature fans.
January 4, 2012
Exquisite writing. Mann addresses some very dark themes with prose so beautiful I found myself rereading paragraphs just to savor the words. There's a sort of introspective joy to these stories that I just loved.
My one small complaint (and it's not enough to knock off a star from the rating) is that the novella that concludes this collection is a bit too long. I think the problem is that I read Fog: A Novel of Desire and Reprisal first, which is a more satisfying abduction/captivity story.
My one small complaint (and it's not enough to knock off a star from the rating) is that the novella that concludes this collection is a bit too long. I think the problem is that I read Fog: A Novel of Desire and Reprisal first, which is a more satisfying abduction/captivity story.
January 13, 2013
All of these stories were amazing. Jeff Mann's writing is simply beautiful, at times I found myself slowing down just to take in the beauty of the words.
Each of the stories had a tint of melencholy that you don't often find in erotica, but the sorrow didn't feel like it was focred to give more depth to the stories, it just felt natural.
The characters are all real people. In fact, with all the stories being narrated in first person, along with certain events and ex-lovers showing up in multiple stories...at times you wonder how much of this is Jeff Mann's own experiences and how much of it is made up.
My one complaint is that it wasn't long enough.
Each of the stories had a tint of melencholy that you don't often find in erotica, but the sorrow didn't feel like it was focred to give more depth to the stories, it just felt natural.
The characters are all real people. In fact, with all the stories being narrated in first person, along with certain events and ex-lovers showing up in multiple stories...at times you wonder how much of this is Jeff Mann's own experiences and how much of it is made up.
My one complaint is that it wasn't long enough.
September 19, 2017
The now-it-can-be-told truth is that when I review reprints of material I’ve read previously, I rarely re-visit them. I might crack open the cover to refresh my memory on character names and salient plot points but that’s as far as it usually goes. That didn’t happen with A History of Barbed Wire. From the first paragraph of “The Quality of Mercy,” (which I’ll get back to in a bit), I was again hooked by Mann’s language, pacing and fevered fetishistic descriptions, and I read the whole thing over again. I admire Mann’s prose as much for its lyricism as its bite—both proven here in magnificent stories like the foreboding “Raspberry Moonshine,” the idyllic “Snowed in With Sam,” the melancholic “Not for Long” and the three-way earnestness of “Daddy Dave.” But it’s “The Quality of Mercy” I keep coming back to again and again. All this and the original introduction by the one and only Patrick Califia make A History of Barbed Wire one of the best reprints of the year. No wonder it won a Lambda Literary Award. Get a copy, hold your head up high and step into Jeff Mann’s Appalachia. Full review at https://outinprintblog.wordpress.com/...
April 15, 2012
[This review was originally published on VelvetMafia.com in August of 2007.]
Winner of The 2006 Lambda Literary Foundation’s Award for Best Gay Erotica, A History of Barbed Wire is a collection of ten short stories that crackle with subcutaneous sexual energy and a novella that delves straight into dark obsession on its opening pages. The men who inhabit these pages are a delicious mix of bikers, academics, mountain men, and musicians, all rough around the edges with thick, hairy bodies in perpetual pursuit of same. Encounters between these various characters occur in unexpected places and at unexpected times, like the freshman with “the black chest hair smoking over the top of that wife-beater”(p. 37) who catches the eye of an already frustrated English professor in “Dionysus Redux” or the lusty apparition of the Confederate soldier who torments the flesh of a traveling history buff in “Fireflies” (but in a good way):
“If I’d believed in the supernatural, I would have muttered some invitation into the darkness, would have tried to sense his spirit in the room. Instead, I tried to feel him on top of me, holding me down, his beard pressed hard and hungrily against mine. In the bed where he died, I spat into my palm, stroked myself, gasped and soon shot into my fist. In the bed where he died, I licked the semen off my hand, rubbed it into my beard, pretending it was his semen, his blood. It was the only intimacy available to us.”(p. 119)
Restraint and bondage are the most prevalent themes running through A History of Barbed Wire, as evidenced by the narrator of “Everett’s Boy” who muses to himself that, “If St. Sebastian could suffer arrows, I can suffer this. Proudly I stick out my chest, suck in my belly and bite down hard on the bit. Everett twists the pins one by one, brushes them back and forth with his fingers till I’m aching, then adds a few all along my cock and over my balls.”(p. 55) Ball gags, rope, and duct tape are the tools of these tradesman and Mann uses them to greatest advantage in “Snowed in with Sam” and in the longer work, “The Quality of Mercy” (the former almost a study for the latter). Put simply, men writhe in musky agony and in bourbon-infused ecstasy in Mann’s capable hands.
In stark contrast to the often-brutal scenes of hardcore sex is the subtle tenderness of Professor Mann’s prose that will, no doubt, catch some readers off guard. With quotations from the likes of W.B. Yeats, John Donne, and Hart Crane, and references to Nietzsche and Shakespeare, this is hyper-masculine erotica so deftly written that it will appeal to both bear fetishists and to literary aesthetes simultaneously. Consider a line like: “This is the rightness of rain reaching the dark thirst of root hairs deep in the earth, the inevitability of sunflower fields shifting hour after hour toward the sun,”(p.31) a phrase crafted to describe the first exquisite moment of anal penetration. Like the author himself, A History of Barbed Wire is a satisfying combination of both brain and brawn whose Southern drawl is so seductive that readers will find it hard to resist and even harder to put down.
Winner of The 2006 Lambda Literary Foundation’s Award for Best Gay Erotica, A History of Barbed Wire is a collection of ten short stories that crackle with subcutaneous sexual energy and a novella that delves straight into dark obsession on its opening pages. The men who inhabit these pages are a delicious mix of bikers, academics, mountain men, and musicians, all rough around the edges with thick, hairy bodies in perpetual pursuit of same. Encounters between these various characters occur in unexpected places and at unexpected times, like the freshman with “the black chest hair smoking over the top of that wife-beater”(p. 37) who catches the eye of an already frustrated English professor in “Dionysus Redux” or the lusty apparition of the Confederate soldier who torments the flesh of a traveling history buff in “Fireflies” (but in a good way):
“If I’d believed in the supernatural, I would have muttered some invitation into the darkness, would have tried to sense his spirit in the room. Instead, I tried to feel him on top of me, holding me down, his beard pressed hard and hungrily against mine. In the bed where he died, I spat into my palm, stroked myself, gasped and soon shot into my fist. In the bed where he died, I licked the semen off my hand, rubbed it into my beard, pretending it was his semen, his blood. It was the only intimacy available to us.”(p. 119)
Restraint and bondage are the most prevalent themes running through A History of Barbed Wire, as evidenced by the narrator of “Everett’s Boy” who muses to himself that, “If St. Sebastian could suffer arrows, I can suffer this. Proudly I stick out my chest, suck in my belly and bite down hard on the bit. Everett twists the pins one by one, brushes them back and forth with his fingers till I’m aching, then adds a few all along my cock and over my balls.”(p. 55) Ball gags, rope, and duct tape are the tools of these tradesman and Mann uses them to greatest advantage in “Snowed in with Sam” and in the longer work, “The Quality of Mercy” (the former almost a study for the latter). Put simply, men writhe in musky agony and in bourbon-infused ecstasy in Mann’s capable hands.
In stark contrast to the often-brutal scenes of hardcore sex is the subtle tenderness of Professor Mann’s prose that will, no doubt, catch some readers off guard. With quotations from the likes of W.B. Yeats, John Donne, and Hart Crane, and references to Nietzsche and Shakespeare, this is hyper-masculine erotica so deftly written that it will appeal to both bear fetishists and to literary aesthetes simultaneously. Consider a line like: “This is the rightness of rain reaching the dark thirst of root hairs deep in the earth, the inevitability of sunflower fields shifting hour after hour toward the sun,”(p.31) a phrase crafted to describe the first exquisite moment of anal penetration. Like the author himself, A History of Barbed Wire is a satisfying combination of both brain and brawn whose Southern drawl is so seductive that readers will find it hard to resist and even harder to put down.
April 25, 2014
This book was my introduction to the writing of Jeff Mann and I definitely want to read more. The book comprises a collection of short stories and one novella. There's not a bad story in the whole set and while his characters are almost all rough, hairy bear types with a passion for ropes and gags, there is a richness and diversity to their personalities that makes each one unique. My personal favourite is "Firefires" about a man obsessed with the ghost of a soldier who haunts a remote hotel. This is a strong and varied collection and very very sexy. Highly recommended
June 8, 2016
This collection of short stories is so difficult to review. Some I didn't care for others I liked a little too much. I feel a little debauched for enjoying The Quality of Mercy as much as I did. I found it extremely erotic and feel a little guilty for for finding it such an extreme turn on. Overall I think my favorite is Raspberry Moonshine but hate that it isn't a full length novel or even novella. Makes me want to find my own James and bury my face in his pits.
January 26, 2016
I approached this book with much trepidation about its subject matter, having only tenuous connections to the bear community and no interest whatsoever in BDSM. However, I found myself blown away by the power of Mann's prose. As is usually the case with compilations, a few of the stories are not quite as strong as the rest, but as a whole the collection soars.
January 29, 2008
This is what erotica should strive for.
bagrat-topagwa
July 14, 2012If you'd like to know what I thought of this book, please contact me directly and I'd be happy to discuss it with you.
All the best,
- TB
All the best,
- TB
August 19, 2015
Jeff Mann is an acquired M/M taste. Very kinky, very graphic. This is a collection of short stories that if you are into Mr. Mann you will really enjoy.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews