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Puppies
Fall 1970 saw John Valentine writing for a fragile underground paper in downtown Hollywood. A decaying building housed its seedy premises, and short of anywhere else to live, he made his home in the rear office. "Peeling wallpaper. Broken windows. Unlockable locks. Bad plumbing. Most slumlike quarters I've ever had. In the absence of any kind of curtaining, I had newspaper taped over the windows. The building was the streetkids' social and community center. Anyone looking for a crashpad looked first there... it was sexual paradise."
- GenresGayGay Erotica
173 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 30, 2024
That these stories aren't in print and unavailable in any other formats like Kindle says way to much that is embarrassing about publishing and current reading habits for my taste (written in February 2023 and if I am wrong I apologise most specifically to Mr. Chester Valentine John Anderson the author's real name, John Valentine was pseudonym).
This is a wonderful witty, sharp, far sighted and just generally brilliant collection of short stories. I have read it three times and own a copy. What more can I say? These are stories, and this is a writer, you need to read. But I warn anyone under 60, who has no knowledge of the 1960s in the US except the sanitised version peddled in films like 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' (if you are surprised by my use of the word sanitised then you definitely don't know the 60s), that you will be shocked by many of the attitudes expressed and events described.
Chester Valentine John Anderson moved to San Francisco during the 'Summer of Love' and was one of the founders of the Communications Company (ComCo), the publishing arm of the anarchist guerrilla street theater group The Diggers. Through ComCo, Anderson circulated a number of his own bitter broadside polemics in Haight-Ashbury, including "Uncle Tim's Children," with its infamous, often-quoted line, "Rape is as common as common as bullshit on Haight'. The best way to understand Anderson and what the 'Sumer of Love' was really like is to read Joan Didion who described the role Anderson and ComCo played in the Haight in her 1967 essay for The Saturday Evening Post, "Slouching Towards Bethlehem", which was later included in the book of the same name.
When reading 'Puppies' or a great deal of the writing from that time you must remember it was a revolution to overthrow established ideas, prejudices, forms, habits, sibbeloths, particularly to do with morality, behavior, sex, etc. Quite how little they understood their own prejudices and failed to recognise that tearing down inhibitions opened the way for others to prey upon the naive and weak only became apparent in retrospect.
But these stories sexual exploration are pure gold, particularly because they reveal that there was a 'gay' liberation element in those rebellions and that 'tuning in and dropping out' and abandoning hang-ups also meant being willing to drop your drawers for a boy as a girl.
I think 'Puppies' is an absolute gem of book and I wouldn't give up at any price.
This is a wonderful witty, sharp, far sighted and just generally brilliant collection of short stories. I have read it three times and own a copy. What more can I say? These are stories, and this is a writer, you need to read. But I warn anyone under 60, who has no knowledge of the 1960s in the US except the sanitised version peddled in films like 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' (if you are surprised by my use of the word sanitised then you definitely don't know the 60s), that you will be shocked by many of the attitudes expressed and events described.
Chester Valentine John Anderson moved to San Francisco during the 'Summer of Love' and was one of the founders of the Communications Company (ComCo), the publishing arm of the anarchist guerrilla street theater group The Diggers. Through ComCo, Anderson circulated a number of his own bitter broadside polemics in Haight-Ashbury, including "Uncle Tim's Children," with its infamous, often-quoted line, "Rape is as common as common as bullshit on Haight'. The best way to understand Anderson and what the 'Sumer of Love' was really like is to read Joan Didion who described the role Anderson and ComCo played in the Haight in her 1967 essay for The Saturday Evening Post, "Slouching Towards Bethlehem", which was later included in the book of the same name.
When reading 'Puppies' or a great deal of the writing from that time you must remember it was a revolution to overthrow established ideas, prejudices, forms, habits, sibbeloths, particularly to do with morality, behavior, sex, etc. Quite how little they understood their own prejudices and failed to recognise that tearing down inhibitions opened the way for others to prey upon the naive and weak only became apparent in retrospect.
But these stories sexual exploration are pure gold, particularly because they reveal that there was a 'gay' liberation element in those rebellions and that 'tuning in and dropping out' and abandoning hang-ups also meant being willing to drop your drawers for a boy as a girl.
I think 'Puppies' is an absolute gem of book and I wouldn't give up at any price.
January 24, 2026
Puppies is one man's journal, but not the journal of his entire life. Just the journal of his lifelong pursuit of sex (and more) centered around his idealized obsession for young men.
But thinking about sex this much, one is likely to come across a profundity or two. And, while the book has some merit as a nostalgic portrait of a grittier but simpler time, it's the casual truths that the writer comes across along the way that make the book worthwhile reading for me. By all means, you should check out the quotes tied to this book.
Just a sampling:
This book falls most closely into the erotica genre, but it's a bit more than that. It evokes an era and a mindset that is most definitely pre-AIDS but also a bit Summer of Love.
For me, it was a trip back in time to a period when my goals and perceptions were different, and hormones had me thinking more with my little head than my big one. This guy was coming of age during the Korean War, but I can tell ya it wasn't all that different coming of age, and coming out in the Vietnam era.
But thinking about sex this much, one is likely to come across a profundity or two. And, while the book has some merit as a nostalgic portrait of a grittier but simpler time, it's the casual truths that the writer comes across along the way that make the book worthwhile reading for me. By all means, you should check out the quotes tied to this book.
Just a sampling:
"What's the use of being sexually liberated, if no one else wants you?”
"Blake inspires instant, tender Blakelust in everyone he meets. All of his beauties are meant to be touched, and he likes to be touched.”
"I am not the kind of person I would ever go to bed with.”
“I've had Good and I've had Bad, and the worst I had was Wonderful!”
“Sex isn't what I'm after. Sex is just what I can get.”
“Every day we make the whole world new... Or else grow old.”
This book falls most closely into the erotica genre, but it's a bit more than that. It evokes an era and a mindset that is most definitely pre-AIDS but also a bit Summer of Love.
For me, it was a trip back in time to a period when my goals and perceptions were different, and hormones had me thinking more with my little head than my big one. This guy was coming of age during the Korean War, but I can tell ya it wasn't all that different coming of age, and coming out in the Vietnam era.
January 24, 2022
Refreshing, honest, amusing, hot -- and given when it was written, wow! I have heard that the author's name is a pseudonym.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews