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Frost
Frost is more than an absorbing love story and an outstanding exposition of homosexual passion and tenderness by the modern master of the genre; it's a bitter parable of the lengths to which a political egomaniac may go as he claws his way to the top of the heap. MUST reading for every individual of whatever sex who feels threatened by the peril to personal freedom in America today!
McGraw was great at manipulating people to achieve his ambitions, with scandal, blackmail, and even murder- until he crossed swords with his son Frost, who refused to stay in the closet and mind his own business. Then McGraw found out that some of the pawns in his grim game of power had a weapon of their own, which he could never begin to understand.
AMOR VINCIT OMNIA
eventually!
McGraw was great at manipulating people to achieve his ambitions, with scandal, blackmail, and even murder- until he crossed swords with his son Frost, who refused to stay in the closet and mind his own business. Then McGraw found out that some of the pawns in his grim game of power had a weapon of their own, which he could never begin to understand.
AMOR VINCIT OMNIA
eventually!
207 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
10 people want to read
About the author
Richard Amory
12 books6 followerspseudonym for Richard Wallace Love
General background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_male...
General background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_male...
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 8, 2012
I had been skeptical of Richard Amory after reading the rather abominable Listen the Loon Sings, but I picked up Frost in a lot of books recently and was very charmed. Amory is a competent writer with obvious passion for his material. For better and for worse, his plotting in this novel leaves something to be desired. This is distinctly a hack mystery, where weirdly implausible connections spring up out of nowhere to lend a hand to the not-especially-clever hero. At the same time, there's some both very camp and very sweet about the whole ordeal.
DeWitt Frost is the son of menswear tycoon McGraw. McGraw, who is the world's worst dad, hires Frost to hunt down Johnny Silva, missing Portuguese student at Berkeley. Frost immediately knows something is up, because who hires a junior college Spanish instructor as a detective? Like many a hack mystery, the twists and turns are endless and basically arbitrary. Frost connects his father to an organization called Up California that publishes inflammatory anti-busing leaflets, sends out agent provocateurs to college protests, and burns down schools.
In the meanwhile, Frost falls in love with a delivery driver named Clint, and they have numerous rather mushy conversations about being two men in love with each other. In many politically aware gay books of the time, there's quite a bit of emphasis on the fact that, as an indirect result of oppression, the gay man is in a position to realize that love shouldn't be directed at a specific person but rather should be a type of brotherly love. One often has the impression that authors feel that love for one person is possessive and small-minded, and in Frost, Amory suggests that a general deep passion for fellow man can be reconciled with a special bond between two individuals.
There's also quite a bit of discussion of race issues. Frost's only real love before Clint was with a black man who was killed in Vietnam. Amory clearly believes very strongly in racial equality, but he makes the unfortunate choice of simplifying the issue to the slogan "we are all niggers," a phrase that gets repeated many times in the book. I get what he's saying - oppressed people ought to have solidarity - but its very naive.
All the same, the ideas are interesting in the context of the time and the book has some historical significance. One detects a seriousness of purpose not often found in pulp sex writing. If it's not exactly a good book, it certainly is an enjoyable book to read, and hack qualities I've highlighted are actually done rather endearingly. McGraw is a rather silly villain, but Frost and his friends are all sympathetically drawn. And, as so often with these books, there's some fun stuff for those familiar with the Bay Area.
DeWitt Frost is the son of menswear tycoon McGraw. McGraw, who is the world's worst dad, hires Frost to hunt down Johnny Silva, missing Portuguese student at Berkeley. Frost immediately knows something is up, because who hires a junior college Spanish instructor as a detective? Like many a hack mystery, the twists and turns are endless and basically arbitrary. Frost connects his father to an organization called Up California that publishes inflammatory anti-busing leaflets, sends out agent provocateurs to college protests, and burns down schools.
In the meanwhile, Frost falls in love with a delivery driver named Clint, and they have numerous rather mushy conversations about being two men in love with each other. In many politically aware gay books of the time, there's quite a bit of emphasis on the fact that, as an indirect result of oppression, the gay man is in a position to realize that love shouldn't be directed at a specific person but rather should be a type of brotherly love. One often has the impression that authors feel that love for one person is possessive and small-minded, and in Frost, Amory suggests that a general deep passion for fellow man can be reconciled with a special bond between two individuals.
There's also quite a bit of discussion of race issues. Frost's only real love before Clint was with a black man who was killed in Vietnam. Amory clearly believes very strongly in racial equality, but he makes the unfortunate choice of simplifying the issue to the slogan "we are all niggers," a phrase that gets repeated many times in the book. I get what he's saying - oppressed people ought to have solidarity - but its very naive.
All the same, the ideas are interesting in the context of the time and the book has some historical significance. One detects a seriousness of purpose not often found in pulp sex writing. If it's not exactly a good book, it certainly is an enjoyable book to read, and hack qualities I've highlighted are actually done rather endearingly. McGraw is a rather silly villain, but Frost and his friends are all sympathetically drawn. And, as so often with these books, there's some fun stuff for those familiar with the Bay Area.
October 20, 2019
The book makes some good, seldom aired in gay fiction, points on race but the premise of the plot doesn't quite make sense and the narrative has an odd lack of context and colour which makes it seem artificial. The writing is uneven.
May 4, 2022
This was a fun read. It had much less sex than the Loon trilogy but much more of a character study and a thriller at the same time. It is very much of its era with dated language and references to the hippie culture and student riots but enjoyable nonetheless.
May 30, 2022
I enjoyed this book although it was very much of the time it was written. There was a lot less sex and more character development than in Amory's "Loon Trilogy" but the main story was credible and it even had a bit of suspense
January 18, 2024
Gay people commit arson, reason uncertain
Want to read
December 11, 2009From the back cover of Frost:
Frost is more than an absorbing love story and an outstanding exposition of homosexual passion and tenderness by the modern master of the genre; it's a bitter parable of the lengths to which a political egomaniac may go as he claws his way to the top of the heap. MUST reading for every individual of whatever sex who feels threatened by the peril to personal freedom in America today!
McGraw was great at manipulating people to achieve his ambitions, with scandal, blackmail, and even murder- until he crossed swords with his son Frost, who refused to stay in the closet and mind his own business. Then McGraw found out that some of the pawns in his grim game of power had a weapon of their own, which he could never begin to understand.
AMOR VINCIT OMNIA
eventually!
An interesting intro and historical analysis by the author's son, Cesar Love, can be found here:
http://www.authorrichardamory.com/rai...
(Note: I'm not a GR librarian and haven't read the book yet, but this page had no info and this is what I found so I took the liberty to quickly type it up from the back cover scan at http://www.glbpubs.com/ Delete comment or recopy to description as necessary.)
Frost is more than an absorbing love story and an outstanding exposition of homosexual passion and tenderness by the modern master of the genre; it's a bitter parable of the lengths to which a political egomaniac may go as he claws his way to the top of the heap. MUST reading for every individual of whatever sex who feels threatened by the peril to personal freedom in America today!
McGraw was great at manipulating people to achieve his ambitions, with scandal, blackmail, and even murder- until he crossed swords with his son Frost, who refused to stay in the closet and mind his own business. Then McGraw found out that some of the pawns in his grim game of power had a weapon of their own, which he could never begin to understand.
AMOR VINCIT OMNIA
eventually!
An interesting intro and historical analysis by the author's son, Cesar Love, can be found here:
http://www.authorrichardamory.com/rai...
(Note: I'm not a GR librarian and haven't read the book yet, but this page had no info and this is what I found so I took the liberty to quickly type it up from the back cover scan at http://www.glbpubs.com/ Delete comment or recopy to description as necessary.)
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews