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The Charles Gorham Reader: Four Full Novels
Four powerful novels by Charles Gorham, out of print for decades, now collected in a single ebook edition.
"Gorham's novels, literary works with pot-boiler topics (prostitution, alcoholism, street crime), were known for their bluntness and realism." Michael Bronski, Pulp Friction
Carlotta McBride
Who is Carlotta McBride? In the swank nightclubs of New York, Hollywood and Paris, she is the beautiful and brilliant star of stage and screen... but in the dark, lurid dive bars and dark alleys of those same cities, she is promiscuous and self-destructive, slowly killing herself with alcohol, drugs, and risky sex. She is a woman seared and haunted by trauma in her past that she can't escape, whether it's in the fantasy world of acting, or at the bottom of a whisky bottle, or in the arms of a brutal man. The only person who can save her is herself...but to do it, she will have to confront a shocking truth.
In September 1960, a judge in Melbourne, Australia declared the book “disgusting to the normal mind” and ordered its seizure and destruction… and the prosecution of booksellers offering the book. In his order, he said “this novel deals with uninhibited sex relations in a manner which is disgusting to the normal mind. I conclude, because of the disgusting description of ordinary bodily functions, that the book would tend to deprave or corrupt those into whose hands it might come."
The Future Mr. Dolan
"Charles Gorham has written a masterpiece. It is a remarkable tour-de-force in character study that will stick in one's mind for a long time. But it is not for the squeamish." Chicago Tribune
Mattie Dolan is a clever and ambitious, 19-year-old sociopath, back from WWII and striving in the backstreets, tenements and dark alleys of New York to rise above the squalor that shaped him... and conquer the city. He does it with casual violence, brutal sex, and by shrewdly manipulating others to commit crimes and other horrors for him. Along the way, he ruthlessly reveals the seething darkness that lurks behind the vast city's many deceptive guises, each a mirror-image of his own pitiless soul.
McCaffery
"Fast-paced, magnetizing...shrewd and literate." Los Angeles Times
Finally back in print! This ground-breaking, controversial novel, banned in Australia and other countries for it's "homosexual references," was the dream acting/directing project of actor Sal Mineo, who was tragically murdered only hours after learning the movie would finally be made.
Vincent McCaffery is a bright, good-looking, and gifted teenage hustler who seduces both men and women for money. He moves from a NY tenement into a plush Greenwich Village brothel, hoping to make it rich, but he falls in love with a prostitute and then plunges into a world of decadence and violence when an older man becomes obsessed with him.
Trial by Darkness
“This is a brilliant book written by a brilliant man who has no fear expressing his ideas.” Birmingham News
Avery Hollister grew up admiring his father, loving his gentle mother too much, and believing in the aristocratic Hollister tradition. And then he sees his family as it really is. His father, a faithless bully, is anxious to preserve appearances at any cost, while his mother, suffering from lack of love, is slowly losing her mind.
So Avery makes a bitter break.
"Gorham's novels, literary works with pot-boiler topics (prostitution, alcoholism, street crime), were known for their bluntness and realism." Michael Bronski, Pulp Friction
Carlotta McBride
Who is Carlotta McBride? In the swank nightclubs of New York, Hollywood and Paris, she is the beautiful and brilliant star of stage and screen... but in the dark, lurid dive bars and dark alleys of those same cities, she is promiscuous and self-destructive, slowly killing herself with alcohol, drugs, and risky sex. She is a woman seared and haunted by trauma in her past that she can't escape, whether it's in the fantasy world of acting, or at the bottom of a whisky bottle, or in the arms of a brutal man. The only person who can save her is herself...but to do it, she will have to confront a shocking truth.
In September 1960, a judge in Melbourne, Australia declared the book “disgusting to the normal mind” and ordered its seizure and destruction… and the prosecution of booksellers offering the book. In his order, he said “this novel deals with uninhibited sex relations in a manner which is disgusting to the normal mind. I conclude, because of the disgusting description of ordinary bodily functions, that the book would tend to deprave or corrupt those into whose hands it might come."
The Future Mr. Dolan
"Charles Gorham has written a masterpiece. It is a remarkable tour-de-force in character study that will stick in one's mind for a long time. But it is not for the squeamish." Chicago Tribune
Mattie Dolan is a clever and ambitious, 19-year-old sociopath, back from WWII and striving in the backstreets, tenements and dark alleys of New York to rise above the squalor that shaped him... and conquer the city. He does it with casual violence, brutal sex, and by shrewdly manipulating others to commit crimes and other horrors for him. Along the way, he ruthlessly reveals the seething darkness that lurks behind the vast city's many deceptive guises, each a mirror-image of his own pitiless soul.
McCaffery
"Fast-paced, magnetizing...shrewd and literate." Los Angeles Times
Finally back in print! This ground-breaking, controversial novel, banned in Australia and other countries for it's "homosexual references," was the dream acting/directing project of actor Sal Mineo, who was tragically murdered only hours after learning the movie would finally be made.
Vincent McCaffery is a bright, good-looking, and gifted teenage hustler who seduces both men and women for money. He moves from a NY tenement into a plush Greenwich Village brothel, hoping to make it rich, but he falls in love with a prostitute and then plunges into a world of decadence and violence when an older man becomes obsessed with him.
Trial by Darkness
“This is a brilliant book written by a brilliant man who has no fear expressing his ideas.” Birmingham News
Avery Hollister grew up admiring his father, loving his gentle mother too much, and believing in the aristocratic Hollister tradition. And then he sees his family as it really is. His father, a faithless bully, is anxious to preserve appearances at any cost, while his mother, suffering from lack of love, is slowly losing her mind.
So Avery makes a bitter break.
1289 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 30, 2024
1 person is currently reading
About the author
Charles Gorham
21 books2 followersCharles Orson Gorham, who write “Wine of Life,” a novel about Balzac, and “The Gold of Their Bodies,” about Gauguin, died Friday of spinal meningitis at Yale‐New Haven Hospital. He was 66 years old and lived in Westport, Conn.
Mr. Gorham Pact been a publicity director for the Doubleday Doran publishing house before serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force and thp Eighth Air Force in World War IL He flew 63 missions as navigator and received the Distinguished Flying Cross.
After the war he wrote his first novel, “The Gilded Hearse,” a satire on the publishing business.
His later books included “The Future Mr. Dolan,”, “Trial by Darkness,” “Carlotta McBride” and “Martha Crane.” Mr. Gorham was a former director of the Authors League.
Surviving are his widow, Ethel; a son, John, two daughters, Deborah and Abigail; a brother, James, and grandchild.
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