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Venus as a Boy
In a room in Soho, a man is turning gold. His flesh, his organs, even his beautiful eyes, are being transformed by some shocking human alchemy into precious deadly metal. And the path to this curious and frightening predicament has itself been filled with incredible moments. It began on South Ronaldsay amongst the singing seals and ancient ruins of Orkney. There a lad grew up with a rare gift for loving - something that proved much trickier than it sounds. He encountered misunderstanding, bullying, loss and heartbreak. And yet the physical heights he reached - and to which he brought others - went far beyond any normal sensual pleasure. This led to the sort of sex that made people see angels. This remarkable story about the power of love veers from stratosphere to gutter, from visions of Heaven to the all-too mortal yearning below for even just one glimpse of it.
146 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
18 people are currently reading
825 people want to read
About the author
Luke Sutherland
4 books21 followersLuke Sutherland was born in London and was brought up in Orkney by his adopted parents. He was educated at Glasgow University, where he read English and philosophy. He is a musician and songwriter and was a founder member of the band Long Fin Killie, with whom he released three albums. He has played violin with Mogwai and his most recent music project is Music A.M. His first novel, Jelly Roll (1998), the story of a struggling Glaswegian jazz band, was shortlisted for the 1998 Whitbread First Novel Award. His second novel, Sweetmeat (2002), set in a London restaurant, narrates the adventures of head chef Bohemond.
Luke Sutherland's latest novel is Venus as a Boy (2004), an exploration of a modern-day myth about the power of love. It is being adapted for the screen by Film Four, in conjunction with Picture Palace North.
He lives in London.
Luke Sutherland's latest novel is Venus as a Boy (2004), an exploration of a modern-day myth about the power of love. It is being adapted for the screen by Film Four, in conjunction with Picture Palace North.
He lives in London.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 82 reviews
September 9, 2022
Writing this I have no idea what Luke Sutherland looks like but I have this fixed image in my head:
A guy sitting quite still except for the occasional reaching out for his drink and cigarette, talking, talking, talking with glittering eyes and a voice that draws me in. And I’m stuck sitting there listening, listening….
Raw, stark and honest so that the fantastical element appears strange, out of place, still it has pride of place, it’s there. The strange contrast gripped me. This is no morality tale with a nicely bow tied conclusion ready to soothe your soul. Rather it’s a show and tell on choices made or not made, cause and effect, being kicked, and kicking. How we cry at being kicked and then all the same kicking someone else, how both positions exist in the same person, giver and taker, victim and abuser, the strange conundrum that is us.
A compulsive read - as if I was caught in a spider’s web.
A guy sitting quite still except for the occasional reaching out for his drink and cigarette, talking, talking, talking with glittering eyes and a voice that draws me in. And I’m stuck sitting there listening, listening….
Raw, stark and honest so that the fantastical element appears strange, out of place, still it has pride of place, it’s there. The strange contrast gripped me. This is no morality tale with a nicely bow tied conclusion ready to soothe your soul. Rather it’s a show and tell on choices made or not made, cause and effect, being kicked, and kicking. How we cry at being kicked and then all the same kicking someone else, how both positions exist in the same person, giver and taker, victim and abuser, the strange conundrum that is us.
A compulsive read - as if I was caught in a spider’s web.
March 23, 2013
Feel like you've been reading way too many heteronormative white American geezers lately? If so, give this gay black rocker from Scotland a try! Read this as a supplement to an appreciation of the author's '90s smart/dynamic band Long Fin Killie, which came to my attention during the mid-Aughts heyday of music blogs jammed with megaupload and rapidshare links found via simple google searches and music aggregators like Totally Fuzzy. One of the best of the free finds a few years ago for me was Talk Talk's duo of truly psychedelic albums, up there with the three releases (particularly Houdini on the Too Pure label -- same as Stereolab etc) by Long Fin Killie, a band from Glasgow led by a gay black multi-instrumentalist singer good enough to get a cameo by Mark E. Smith on one of their tracks. Lyrics reminded me of Lou Reed a little but updated and focused on male body issues, cops picking up dudes at Micky D's, old transexual photographers: "if I fail to catch that wounded goddess in you, I've a flair for porno." Over the years, during the free music blurge thanks to mediafire and blogspot, a thousand albums on my iPod have come and gone but Long Fin Killie never left for long whenever we took a break. I've known about this novel for a while and should've gotten it when I was it on sale at a Philly used place near where I work. I figured it wasn't going anywhere soon, but lately I noticed that it'd either been purchased or lost in the stacks and so I freaked and found a copy online and prioritized its perusal ahead of two dozen apparent masterpieces acquired during the recent perinatal book-buying splurge. At first I thought this might be too spare, a little underdone, what with a frame conceit that it's based on tapes made by a dying tranny from the author's hometown (an island off the north coast of Scotland), but soon enough it settles into a coming-of-age depiction of life on this idyllic island among the elements (the earth, wind, fire, air, desires, confusions of youth), with a light magic touch, literally Midas-like, and some early flying around, but really more drug-addled sex and beatdown realism than magic. Also a really effective slant autobiography, in that the narrator's ignorance/weakness-fueled rascism toward the mixed race family that moves to the island undermines his first big true love. Since the young black boy harassed on the island is Luke Sutherland, the author, there's a touching indirect description of early youth and the island from the POV of this drug-addled poof who has a talent for making people see angels and orchards with just a touch. The later sections when the narrator leaves the island for exciting work in London's sex trade loses some magic related to the exotic Scottish isle, but takes on layers of poignancy as he tries to recapture big love lost, first with Wendy (formerly Elliot) and then Pascal, a neo-Nazi the narrator aggressively uses his magic mouth upon to teach him peace and love. Under 150 pages of perfectly phrased yet never-pukey lyrical prose ("Sex Pistols covers softened by the sea, the hillsides, and what little wind there was"), always unpredictable macro/narrative and micro/sentence movement, with suggestions of insight into everything from race to sexuality to gnosticism to madness to drugs to life on earth. Sutherland has two other short novels and I'll read them this year and hope he publishes a fourth one soon (it's been several years since this one came out, so I won't hold my breath). If this makes a few Long Fin Killie fans, the world shall slightly improve. If a few folks pick up this book, too, let's just say no one will be at a loss at all.
April 17, 2022
Venus as a Boy is a short novel consisting mostly of atmosphere and vibes. The narrator describes his teenage years on the Orkney island of South Ronaldsay, then his early thirties as a sex worker in London. The episodic narrative of his life considers racism, queerness, gender identity, exploitation, cruelty, violence, love, and pleasure. The contrast between an isolated island and central London is drawn rather beautifully. The blurb ascribes a mythic quality to the book; there are elements of magical realism and it felt to me a bit like a fable. The narrator is dying as he is turning to gold, which could just as easily be interpreted as poetic imagery or as an allegory. There is much juxtaposition of the lovely and the horrible throughout. Although my preference is generally for longer and more structured personal narratives, I found the writing evocative and the imagery arresting.
January 22, 2008
Strange and beautiful. Little sentences clumped together into little paragraphs. Part poem, part myth. Peculiar people living passionate lives. This took me by surprise and I'd like to see more by Mr Sutherland.
August 7, 2016
"Fate isn't all-compassing. It doesn't own you. You get signs and make your choice. Sometimes you make the wrong choice and die before your time or spend your whole life in atonement. But it's the choices you make that are fate. The trick is understanding why you're here and what you're made for.
All I felt sure of was that only true love would make me whole..."
Venus as a Boy is about a man desperately seeking for love.
A man with an understanding that only true love can bring him closer to himself and God.
A man with a knowledge that only spreading love can give you Heaven.
A man with a realization that all his attempts for find true love were doomed to failure because the search for another love was actually WHAT he was made for.
"True love was never going to be my reward...My reward is the understanding that , for those I've touched, knowledge of me is knowledge of the divine."
Extremely sad and extremely good written.
P.S Thank you my dear Sofia for a wonderful birthday gift!
May 15, 2025
This was optional reading for a class I took in my freshman year, and as much as I regret only now reading it in my last year of undergrad, I don’t think I would’ve been able to enjoy and question this book as an 18 year old the way I do today at 22. Brutal yet defenseless, glittery yet unvarnished, and all in just 146 magnificent pages.
December 20, 2015
Queer, mythology-inflected magic-realism set in the Scottish Highlands and London. Strangely exhilarating for a story so sad. I find it more difficult than usual to write about this book; like the 'dancing about architecture' thing (which I often disagree with), this book was far more in my experience than anything I could verbalise. I try not to write reviews heavy on plot summary but here it's all I find I can do.
A first-person account, with a couple of pages of framing narrative to start out with, as if the author - also a post-rock musician IRL and in the book, and who'd grown up in the same Orkney village as the narrator - had been given recordings of the story after an acquaintance from a London gig and then published them.
The only names we hear for the narrator are those given him by others; most are insults; he is introduced by his friend as Desiree so I'll refer to him by that name, although it was first adopted not entirely of his own volition. The book was published in 2004; in the contemporary sense one could simply describe Desiree as queer, that one word now covering his complexity of sexuality, gender and presentation, but telling his story in 2002 (he is dying whilst slowly turning into gold), and born in 1964, he keeps having to describe and explain how he is and is not. He's bisexual, slightly feminine but not always obviously so, at times likes wearing female clothing but not as often, or to the extent of, the drag queens he eventually lives with near Soho.
Severely bullied as a kid by violent boys who drove his female best friend and her mother to leave the island (why is it that so many of the worst accounts of bullying I've heard in books or in person are from people born the decade before me? What had started to change by the 80s?), he eventually manages to get the tough boys to accept him as a hanger-on - there being little choice of company on an island inhabited by fewer than 200 people. Life is tough socially but he loves the natural environment of the Orkneys. A key change for teenage Desiree is when a mixed race family with black kids, younger than him, moves to the island (one of the kids is the author), the bullies focus on them instead, and at the time a relieved Desiree encourages the racism, to save his own skin.
As a teenager, Desiree discovers that he has a powerful and spiritual sexual effect on anyone he touches*; they see visions, they often become nicer people. Sometimes, nicer than he is.
Inevitably for a teenage misfit in a small town, he leaves. Winds up working as live-in staff in a country hotel, rather like that in the TV series The Lakes, full of loud, weird colleagues. (I always thought this sort of thing sounded like a great adventure, but my health wasn't robust enough to actually do it.) An event sends him right off rails he was never firmly on, and the bulk of the novella is about his life as a rent boy in London. Which is, as he points out, Hogarthian - he's picked up and preyed on when he's not long off the train; living in a shared property in the old rookery district of St Giles, which he sometimes calls a molly house. He never has the wherewithal to work out how to leave; no explanation seems necessary given his history beatings, of forcing himself fit in with bullies, and lack of qualifications. (Though I was a mixture of cross with his London friends for not trying harder to get him out, and thinking it too unrealistic that such people wouldn't.)
Venus As a Boy doesn't seem to have any great lesson or purpose, it's simply art, tragic art. It has a nice mix of the poetic and conversational and was surprisingly easy reading for something with such intensity. Its sordid glamour can be beautiful but it's never for a minute inviting as dark stories sometimes are; it's obvious that this is too painful an existence, even if it contains many moments of wonder.
I bought this book not long after it was published, and got rid of it a few years later without reading. I'm glad of Scribd making it possible to find things like this, which I want to read but wouldn't quite pay for unto themselves, and are a too unusual for most libraries. I wasn't that keen on ereadering when I first got one of the gadgets - grudgingly, for space-saving reasons; yet now I have that same burst of enthusiasm that many people had about four years ago when they first got their Kindle or Kobo.
*Another review mentions this is similar to Pasolini's Teorema, one of those films I've meant to see but haven't got round to.
A first-person account, with a couple of pages of framing narrative to start out with, as if the author - also a post-rock musician IRL and in the book, and who'd grown up in the same Orkney village as the narrator - had been given recordings of the story after an acquaintance from a London gig and then published them.
The only names we hear for the narrator are those given him by others; most are insults; he is introduced by his friend as Desiree so I'll refer to him by that name, although it was first adopted not entirely of his own volition. The book was published in 2004; in the contemporary sense one could simply describe Desiree as queer, that one word now covering his complexity of sexuality, gender and presentation, but telling his story in 2002 (he is dying whilst slowly turning into gold), and born in 1964, he keeps having to describe and explain how he is and is not. He's bisexual, slightly feminine but not always obviously so, at times likes wearing female clothing but not as often, or to the extent of, the drag queens he eventually lives with near Soho.
Severely bullied as a kid by violent boys who drove his female best friend and her mother to leave the island (why is it that so many of the worst accounts of bullying I've heard in books or in person are from people born the decade before me? What had started to change by the 80s?), he eventually manages to get the tough boys to accept him as a hanger-on - there being little choice of company on an island inhabited by fewer than 200 people. Life is tough socially but he loves the natural environment of the Orkneys. A key change for teenage Desiree is when a mixed race family with black kids, younger than him, moves to the island (one of the kids is the author), the bullies focus on them instead, and at the time a relieved Desiree encourages the racism, to save his own skin.
As a teenager, Desiree discovers that he has a powerful and spiritual sexual effect on anyone he touches*; they see visions, they often become nicer people. Sometimes, nicer than he is.
Inevitably for a teenage misfit in a small town, he leaves. Winds up working as live-in staff in a country hotel, rather like that in the TV series The Lakes, full of loud, weird colleagues. (I always thought this sort of thing sounded like a great adventure, but my health wasn't robust enough to actually do it.) An event sends him right off rails he was never firmly on, and the bulk of the novella is about his life as a rent boy in London. Which is, as he points out, Hogarthian - he's picked up and preyed on when he's not long off the train; living in a shared property in the old rookery district of St Giles, which he sometimes calls a molly house. He never has the wherewithal to work out how to leave; no explanation seems necessary given his history beatings, of forcing himself fit in with bullies, and lack of qualifications. (Though I was a mixture of cross with his London friends for not trying harder to get him out, and thinking it too unrealistic that such people wouldn't.)
Venus As a Boy doesn't seem to have any great lesson or purpose, it's simply art, tragic art. It has a nice mix of the poetic and conversational and was surprisingly easy reading for something with such intensity. Its sordid glamour can be beautiful but it's never for a minute inviting as dark stories sometimes are; it's obvious that this is too painful an existence, even if it contains many moments of wonder.
I bought this book not long after it was published, and got rid of it a few years later without reading. I'm glad of Scribd making it possible to find things like this, which I want to read but wouldn't quite pay for unto themselves, and are a too unusual for most libraries. I wasn't that keen on ereadering when I first got one of the gadgets - grudgingly, for space-saving reasons; yet now I have that same burst of enthusiasm that many people had about four years ago when they first got their Kindle or Kobo.
*Another review mentions this is similar to Pasolini's Teorema, one of those films I've meant to see but haven't got round to.
April 6, 2018
Middlesex meets Last Exit to Brooklyn.
i’m all about finding beauty in the grotesque. but, as love in this book is a dazzling orgasm, i didn’t see much beauty in its primary pursuit.
while its overly physical idea of love doesn’t offer reprieve, there is something in its secondary emphasis — grace. like a sean baker film. flawed characters offering one another occasional compassion. not fully explored. the boy befriending dove instead of lighting fire to him in his sleep remains infuriating, despite the line or two about having a knack for forgiveness.
tracy is remembered to the bitter end but “besides, Finola had been gone three years by then”? fuck tracy. finola could fly.
the protagonist’s descent is glazed over as well.
nice themes but this book falls short of earning its depressing plot points.
3 stars
i’m all about finding beauty in the grotesque. but, as love in this book is a dazzling orgasm, i didn’t see much beauty in its primary pursuit.
while its overly physical idea of love doesn’t offer reprieve, there is something in its secondary emphasis — grace. like a sean baker film. flawed characters offering one another occasional compassion. not fully explored. the boy befriending dove instead of lighting fire to him in his sleep remains infuriating, despite the line or two about having a knack for forgiveness.
tracy is remembered to the bitter end but “besides, Finola had been gone three years by then”? fuck tracy. finola could fly.
the protagonist’s descent is glazed over as well.
nice themes but this book falls short of earning its depressing plot points.
3 stars
September 1, 2024
This is an extraordinary little novel and I have many different things to say about it. To begin with I removed the novel from my shelves for literature-bildungsroman and literature-fantasy-SF-weird because although the novels protagonist grows into something, it is way outside any conventional bildungsroman journey and while there are elements of the fantastic it is not fantasy and while odd/different most definitely not weird.
I can't help referring to other reviews, particularly that from The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
and The Independent on Sunday:
https://archive.ph/20131129000512/htt...
They are not necessarily the best reviews but they are the only ones I can direct you to which are accessible free. With such well written and eloquent reviews I see no need to belabour the novel's story or meaning. I will confess that as someone who from a very young age loved the idea of living in the midst of Piccadilly Circus or Times Square but was bombarded with tales of the countrysides superiority I was more than delighted by the novels depiction of the hell that life on Scottish Isle was in reality. It is not a very noble bit of Schadenfreude but then Schadenfreude isn't a noble emotion, only an intensely satisfying one.
Explore the above reviews if you want to really want to know about this novel but honestly I suggest you invest the time to read 150 pages no matter what. It will be a unique experience.
I can't help referring to other reviews, particularly that from The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
and The Independent on Sunday:
https://archive.ph/20131129000512/htt...
They are not necessarily the best reviews but they are the only ones I can direct you to which are accessible free. With such well written and eloquent reviews I see no need to belabour the novel's story or meaning. I will confess that as someone who from a very young age loved the idea of living in the midst of Piccadilly Circus or Times Square but was bombarded with tales of the countrysides superiority I was more than delighted by the novels depiction of the hell that life on Scottish Isle was in reality. It is not a very noble bit of Schadenfreude but then Schadenfreude isn't a noble emotion, only an intensely satisfying one.
Explore the above reviews if you want to really want to know about this novel but honestly I suggest you invest the time to read 150 pages no matter what. It will be a unique experience.
August 14, 2021
To-
To było wstrząsająco piękne. Nie jestem w stanie na razie napisać nic więcej. Czuję jakbym była tą liczną osobą, którą "oświecił" Désirée, zakochałam się w Kupidynie.
Przeczytajcie.
To było wstrząsająco piękne. Nie jestem w stanie na razie napisać nic więcej. Czuję jakbym była tą liczną osobą, którą "oświecił" Désirée, zakochałam się w Kupidynie.
Przeczytajcie.
September 23, 2015
This is a magical, queer, tragic and endearing book all at once. It is positively brief, just the right length to encompass such a story! If you want some unusual queer fiction, this is the book to go for!
April 25, 2009
A curious wee read this one, but given its premise, I wanted to see how it ended up. I liked it well enough, but it lacked a certain something for me to truly love it.
January 11, 2024
Unsettled.
February 24, 2025
undecided
August 10, 2015
This is one of the strangest books I've ever read - and i've read quite a few! It isn't the subject manner that is strange, I can deal with sex and strong language. It is more the manner in which it is told, set out, described. It has been described as poetic, but I found it less literary, and more distracted - almost an oxymoron - such brilliant prose mixed with accented, colloquial language.
I found the gaps between paragraph pointless. I didn't really get why the author did it. In fact, the actual retelling of D's life is in fact redundant. What was the point? A bisexual man who can gift anybody the 'heavens and angels' by simply giving them an explosive orgasm. The boy obviously has an awful childhood, and the loneliness and need for acceptance upon a closeted Scottish island causes him to rebel against order.
His sexual encounters needed to be told more to make that particular theme in the story more memorable, more of an impact, more centre stage. The way in which a bisexual man is stereotypically written to enjoying wearing female clothing is a cliche I've come across more than once recently, and I found the entire thing rather pretentious, as if Sutherland guessed at what it must be like to find both 'girls' and 'boys' attractive.
I found the gaps between paragraph pointless. I didn't really get why the author did it. In fact, the actual retelling of D's life is in fact redundant. What was the point? A bisexual man who can gift anybody the 'heavens and angels' by simply giving them an explosive orgasm. The boy obviously has an awful childhood, and the loneliness and need for acceptance upon a closeted Scottish island causes him to rebel against order.
His sexual encounters needed to be told more to make that particular theme in the story more memorable, more of an impact, more centre stage. The way in which a bisexual man is stereotypically written to enjoying wearing female clothing is a cliche I've come across more than once recently, and I found the entire thing rather pretentious, as if Sutherland guessed at what it must be like to find both 'girls' and 'boys' attractive.
August 18, 2009
The novel begins with the premise of the author having been approached by a stranger who requests the writer to tell the story of a dying man. Although reluctant at first, the writer is intrigued by the dying man's story. The young man claims that he is literally turning to gold, a miracle that follows that of his transformation from man to woman.
In addition to these fantastical metamorphoses, the dying man has the gift to transport others into the realm of sublime love and ecstasy, merely by touch or via sex (as in Pasolini's Teorema).
These developments are, paradoxically, only one end of the spectrum of incredible events recounted here. At the other end lie sordid and disturbing developments that befall the protagonist, leading to his untimely death.
Sutherland succeeds in maintaining a balance between the two extremes with this intriguing narrative - almost. At the novel's end the pace of the narrative becomes rushed, the plot takes on too many sharp turns, and the reader is left stranded with questions that remain unresolved.
I'm not sure whether Venus is, in the end, a martyr, a saint, or a sinner.
In addition to these fantastical metamorphoses, the dying man has the gift to transport others into the realm of sublime love and ecstasy, merely by touch or via sex (as in Pasolini's Teorema).
These developments are, paradoxically, only one end of the spectrum of incredible events recounted here. At the other end lie sordid and disturbing developments that befall the protagonist, leading to his untimely death.
Sutherland succeeds in maintaining a balance between the two extremes with this intriguing narrative - almost. At the novel's end the pace of the narrative becomes rushed, the plot takes on too many sharp turns, and the reader is left stranded with questions that remain unresolved.
I'm not sure whether Venus is, in the end, a martyr, a saint, or a sinner.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 17, 2009
I loved this book, but weeks after reading it I still can't figure out why. I don't like memoirs or biographies, I don't care whether things are based on 'reality', I don't particularly go in for tales of great exploits - drug addicts, mobsters, murderers mean not much to me - on the surface, this story could almost appear as bragging. Because no one could endure so much pain, could they? No one could endure so much suffering, heartbreak, disillusionment, despair, injustice. Could they?
Yet I was completely engrossed from the first few paragraphs (once I got over the introduction). Not only was it (wait for it) 'unputdownable', but it actually gave me a hankering for a little of the old self-destructive inclinations I thought I had under control. I think that's what critics mean when they say the book 'came to life'.
Yet I was completely engrossed from the first few paragraphs (once I got over the introduction). Not only was it (wait for it) 'unputdownable', but it actually gave me a hankering for a little of the old self-destructive inclinations I thought I had under control. I think that's what critics mean when they say the book 'came to life'.
August 13, 2025
Eine dieser großen Seltsamkeiten des deutschen Verlagswesens: Warum vor 20 Jahren ein so kurzes wie ergreifendes, wie – im Grunde – voll modisches Buch wie dieses von keinem übersetzt und verlegt wurde. Wodurch wir selbst heute noch diesen (wenigstens) „kleineren“ Meilenstein gar nicht kennen.
Es ist ein kurzer Roman, der aus vielen kleinen Geschichten das Leben eines androgynen Jungen von den Orkneyinseln (später in Glasgow, am Ende in London) zusammensetzt. Erst wird er Cupid genannt, schließlich Desirée, woran schon kenntlich ist, dass es mit dem Thema Queerness zu tun hat.
Sehr relevant für die Schreibweise und den Rezeptionsprozess in England ist, dass es der dritte Roman von einem Rockmusiker gewesen ist, der zeitweise bei der Gruppe Mogwai mitgemacht hat, welche in dem Buch auch kurz mal vorkommt. Außerdem ist er, der Autor, schwarz und teilweise auf Orkney aufgewachsen. In der Erzählung kommt vorübergehend eine aus England zugezogene Familie mit zwei schwarzen und zwei weißen Kindern vor, denen von den Insel-Bullys, mit denen auch Cupid sich herumschlägt, das Leben zur Hölle gemacht wird. Ansonsten spielen sie jedoch keine Rolle. Allerdings wird Cupid, dessen nicht Hineinpassen in traditionelle Gesellschaften mit seinem Mädchen-artigen Äußeren und seiner Gewohnheit, weibliche Wäsche zu tragen, auffällig wird, später mehrfach von Freundinnen vorgeworfen, er hätte den Rassismus der Gehässigen damals leichtfertig übernommen, sei als Kätzchen eines Moped-Rockers herumgezogen.
Es sollte einem schon vor Beginn der Lektüre klar sein, dass man es mit einer gerafften, sprunghaften Erzählweise zu tun bekommt, die ganze Romane in drei Seiten verpackt und auf Teufel komm raus in Richtung Musik-Clip und Misfits-Kult stilisiert. Als Kinder fliegen Cupid und seine Freundin durch die Luft. Als Erwachsener, gastronomische Hilfskraft in der schottischen Großstadt mit Anschluss an mit Drogen hervorragend versorgte Kollegen, entdeckt Cupid seine magische Gabe, in jedem Körper, weiblich oder männlich, warme, ungekannte Glücksgefühle per sexueller Hingabe zu erwecken. Als er am Ende todkrank ist, steigert sich das noch weiter, als seine/ihre Haut sich zu Gold verwandelt und leidende Menschen damit anfangen, sie wie eine Wallfahrtsheilige aufzusuchen.
Die Autorenfiktion Sutherlands ist, dass es das Vorbild Cupids in den 1990-er Jahren gegeben und er sich ihm als Fan vorgestellt und darum gebeten hätte, sein Leben aufzuschreiben. Sutherland habe das Projekt schleifen lassen und diese Person aus den Augen verloren. Als sie dann tot gewesen sei, hätten Freunde die von ihr selbst auf Musikcassetten gesprochene Lebensgeschichte ihm zugespielt, Cupids Rede habe er in Buchform gebracht. Es werden zuletzt die Lebensdaten 1964 bis 2002 genannt. Obwohl die im Buch erzählte spätere Kindheit eher in die Postpunkzeit Anfang der 1980-er passt. Sex Pistols und Blondies „Call Me“ gelten als Offenbarungen. Das würde dann eher zu Sutherlands Jahrgang, 1971, passen.
Was das Buch auf jeden Fall braucht, ist seine innere seelische Zeitspalte dunkler Jahre, von denen Cupid behauptet, er wisse nicht, wie er sie überlebt habe. Mit viel Kokain auf jeden Fall. Nämlich will Sutherland - mit den wenigen ihm zur Verfügung stehenden Seiten - auf jeden Fall noch zu AIDS, zur nazigesteuerten Ausländerhatz von Rostock-Lichtenhagen (1992), schließlich auch noch zum World Trade Center, Osama Bin Laden und dem postwendenden Rassismus gegen Muslime und Schwarze in Britannien kommen.
Es wäre vielleicht gut, sich dieses Buch als wie von einem Mann zu denken, der sich am liebsten ausmalt, er wäre ein junger Typ, der ein Mädchen in sich fühlt, sich nun auch in Mädchen verliebt, mit ihnen sexuell verkehrt, sie auch immer das Mädchen in ihm erkennen, ohne ihn und sich selbst allerdings als lesbisch aufzufassen, eher bi- oder pansexuell. Dann verliert er viele Jahre, um jedoch mit 32 immer noch als 18-Jähriger unter 18-Jährigen durchzugehen (ein paar solcher Punkte gibt es, wo ich dann aussteige: „Mann, was bildest du dir ein: ein 32-jähriger, der von 18-Jährigen für 18 gehalten wird?“). Er lernt eine Amerikanerin kennen, die letzte große Liebe seines Lebens, die, wie er selbst jetzt auch, als Prostituierte arbeitet. In ihrer Jugend war sie ein Junge. Die verliert er aber an einen schwarzen Tramp. Und macht die Dummheit,die Geheimaufzeichnungen über ihre Geschlechtsumwandlung zu stehlen und dem Schwarzen zu schicken. Das heißt, jetzt ist er allein. Und lässt sich körperlich endgültig zur Frau umbauen.
All dies ist enorm knapp und immer auf den Punkt erzählt, reduziert und überlegt. Und ist natürlich eine weitere Ausgabe der altbekannten Jugend-Generation-Lebensgefühl-Zelebration. Das nächste „Den Teufel im Leib“, „Denn sie wissen nicht was sie tun“, „Á bout de souffle – Breathless“. Umwerfend erst einmal.
Obwohl: Wie genau erzählt man mehr oder weniger allen (!) Leuten zwischen 14 und 44, dass es einmal Heroen des intensiven Lebens gab, die coolen Säue, die für paar wahre Momente alles andere hingaben? Wenn nicht auch wieder mit Sich-Bedienen bei so ziemlich jeder Droge, ekstatischem Tanz, stundenlanger Zärtlichkeit auf Dächern unter dem Mond, gefährlicher Messerstecherei, ständig Sex, wie ihn die, allerdings eigentlich nicht anwesenden, Spießer, zu „verdorben“ und „verboten“ erklärt hatten?
Es will immer das vollkommen Andere und kommt meistens zu denselben Schlüssen.
Erst einmal ist man hingerissen. Am Ende schon wieder ganz froh, dass man die nächsten paar Monate so was nicht mehr lesen muss.
Es ist ein kurzer Roman, der aus vielen kleinen Geschichten das Leben eines androgynen Jungen von den Orkneyinseln (später in Glasgow, am Ende in London) zusammensetzt. Erst wird er Cupid genannt, schließlich Desirée, woran schon kenntlich ist, dass es mit dem Thema Queerness zu tun hat.
Sehr relevant für die Schreibweise und den Rezeptionsprozess in England ist, dass es der dritte Roman von einem Rockmusiker gewesen ist, der zeitweise bei der Gruppe Mogwai mitgemacht hat, welche in dem Buch auch kurz mal vorkommt. Außerdem ist er, der Autor, schwarz und teilweise auf Orkney aufgewachsen. In der Erzählung kommt vorübergehend eine aus England zugezogene Familie mit zwei schwarzen und zwei weißen Kindern vor, denen von den Insel-Bullys, mit denen auch Cupid sich herumschlägt, das Leben zur Hölle gemacht wird. Ansonsten spielen sie jedoch keine Rolle. Allerdings wird Cupid, dessen nicht Hineinpassen in traditionelle Gesellschaften mit seinem Mädchen-artigen Äußeren und seiner Gewohnheit, weibliche Wäsche zu tragen, auffällig wird, später mehrfach von Freundinnen vorgeworfen, er hätte den Rassismus der Gehässigen damals leichtfertig übernommen, sei als Kätzchen eines Moped-Rockers herumgezogen.
Es sollte einem schon vor Beginn der Lektüre klar sein, dass man es mit einer gerafften, sprunghaften Erzählweise zu tun bekommt, die ganze Romane in drei Seiten verpackt und auf Teufel komm raus in Richtung Musik-Clip und Misfits-Kult stilisiert. Als Kinder fliegen Cupid und seine Freundin durch die Luft. Als Erwachsener, gastronomische Hilfskraft in der schottischen Großstadt mit Anschluss an mit Drogen hervorragend versorgte Kollegen, entdeckt Cupid seine magische Gabe, in jedem Körper, weiblich oder männlich, warme, ungekannte Glücksgefühle per sexueller Hingabe zu erwecken. Als er am Ende todkrank ist, steigert sich das noch weiter, als seine/ihre Haut sich zu Gold verwandelt und leidende Menschen damit anfangen, sie wie eine Wallfahrtsheilige aufzusuchen.
Die Autorenfiktion Sutherlands ist, dass es das Vorbild Cupids in den 1990-er Jahren gegeben und er sich ihm als Fan vorgestellt und darum gebeten hätte, sein Leben aufzuschreiben. Sutherland habe das Projekt schleifen lassen und diese Person aus den Augen verloren. Als sie dann tot gewesen sei, hätten Freunde die von ihr selbst auf Musikcassetten gesprochene Lebensgeschichte ihm zugespielt, Cupids Rede habe er in Buchform gebracht. Es werden zuletzt die Lebensdaten 1964 bis 2002 genannt. Obwohl die im Buch erzählte spätere Kindheit eher in die Postpunkzeit Anfang der 1980-er passt. Sex Pistols und Blondies „Call Me“ gelten als Offenbarungen. Das würde dann eher zu Sutherlands Jahrgang, 1971, passen.
Was das Buch auf jeden Fall braucht, ist seine innere seelische Zeitspalte dunkler Jahre, von denen Cupid behauptet, er wisse nicht, wie er sie überlebt habe. Mit viel Kokain auf jeden Fall. Nämlich will Sutherland - mit den wenigen ihm zur Verfügung stehenden Seiten - auf jeden Fall noch zu AIDS, zur nazigesteuerten Ausländerhatz von Rostock-Lichtenhagen (1992), schließlich auch noch zum World Trade Center, Osama Bin Laden und dem postwendenden Rassismus gegen Muslime und Schwarze in Britannien kommen.
Es wäre vielleicht gut, sich dieses Buch als wie von einem Mann zu denken, der sich am liebsten ausmalt, er wäre ein junger Typ, der ein Mädchen in sich fühlt, sich nun auch in Mädchen verliebt, mit ihnen sexuell verkehrt, sie auch immer das Mädchen in ihm erkennen, ohne ihn und sich selbst allerdings als lesbisch aufzufassen, eher bi- oder pansexuell. Dann verliert er viele Jahre, um jedoch mit 32 immer noch als 18-Jähriger unter 18-Jährigen durchzugehen (ein paar solcher Punkte gibt es, wo ich dann aussteige: „Mann, was bildest du dir ein: ein 32-jähriger, der von 18-Jährigen für 18 gehalten wird?“). Er lernt eine Amerikanerin kennen, die letzte große Liebe seines Lebens, die, wie er selbst jetzt auch, als Prostituierte arbeitet. In ihrer Jugend war sie ein Junge. Die verliert er aber an einen schwarzen Tramp. Und macht die Dummheit,die Geheimaufzeichnungen über ihre Geschlechtsumwandlung zu stehlen und dem Schwarzen zu schicken. Das heißt, jetzt ist er allein. Und lässt sich körperlich endgültig zur Frau umbauen.
All dies ist enorm knapp und immer auf den Punkt erzählt, reduziert und überlegt. Und ist natürlich eine weitere Ausgabe der altbekannten Jugend-Generation-Lebensgefühl-Zelebration. Das nächste „Den Teufel im Leib“, „Denn sie wissen nicht was sie tun“, „Á bout de souffle – Breathless“. Umwerfend erst einmal.
Obwohl: Wie genau erzählt man mehr oder weniger allen (!) Leuten zwischen 14 und 44, dass es einmal Heroen des intensiven Lebens gab, die coolen Säue, die für paar wahre Momente alles andere hingaben? Wenn nicht auch wieder mit Sich-Bedienen bei so ziemlich jeder Droge, ekstatischem Tanz, stundenlanger Zärtlichkeit auf Dächern unter dem Mond, gefährlicher Messerstecherei, ständig Sex, wie ihn die, allerdings eigentlich nicht anwesenden, Spießer, zu „verdorben“ und „verboten“ erklärt hatten?
Es will immer das vollkommen Andere und kommt meistens zu denselben Schlüssen.
Erst einmal ist man hingerissen. Am Ende schon wieder ganz froh, dass man die nächsten paar Monate so was nicht mehr lesen muss.
September 20, 2009
This is the story of a boy, and then a young man born and raised on the Orkney Islands off the northern coast of Scotland. I never knew much about this part of the world before.The character loves his homeland, but his life is fraught with danger and marked by abuse. How love results from this, I don't know, but it does. This is a beautiful book about how sweetness survives amid brutality.I loved this book.
June 27, 2020
Melancholy, depressing, vaguely pornographic, gritty, fantastical. Offers only glimpses into the minds and spirits of broken people ("people so corroded they weren't worth loving"); brutal memories, hollow dreams. Less a story than a mood, and not a positive one.
July 24, 2019
AW FUCK
September 5, 2025
a classic for the ages
November 10, 2024
This is going on my formative book pile
September 5, 2024
If I could rate this book 3.5/5 I would but goodreads is evil!!!!
On one hand I adore the unabashed moral bankruptcy of it all. The narrator's betrayal of Wendy is nothing short of devastating and a complete kick to the stomach. Sutherland, at many points throughout the novel, was somehow able to gracefully ignite visceral physical reactions in me.
Sutherland particularly excels in his melodic, lyrical description and insight into race, sexuality and gender. The narrator is intensely flawed and Sutherland's personal way of writing conjures a deeply complex and intriguing character- who, like many of us, struggles to find reason for their irrational actions. This story, although fantasy, is human at its very core. I read it in one sitting.
The blending of genres here works very well, especially in the opening third of the book. It's seamless, and enables Sutherland to beautifully comment on memory and the relationship between past and present. When the narrator speaks of flying with Finola, I began to question which passages were fantasy and which were reality, trying to situate each scene. Then, I shortly realised that this is purposefully impossible within the novel- and more importantly, it doesn't really matter. We all have foggy memories of childhood which feel like a blur, which you can't quite place. We all have glittering memories of days much nearer to the present which still make us question 'Did that really happen?'. After all, what is a memory if not a fantasy of the past? Sutherland's writings of the narrator's childhood are nostalgic, misty, twisted and jarring all at once.
Sutherland is grasping at a greater meaning for all the pieces he has laid upon the table, willing them to connect, but he hasn't done the heavy lifting for any kind of narrative payoff. Perhaps this was the intent, to leave a broken image of a life of struggle, but unfortunately it didn't entirely click for me.
I really did enjoy this novel and I think it's definitely worth a read. I promise! I was thoroughly engrossed in the narrator and their life, however when I think a little too hard about the book it doesn't strike me as the sum of its parts. There is just something missing for me.
On one hand I adore the unabashed moral bankruptcy of it all. The narrator's betrayal of Wendy is nothing short of devastating and a complete kick to the stomach. Sutherland, at many points throughout the novel, was somehow able to gracefully ignite visceral physical reactions in me.
Sutherland particularly excels in his melodic, lyrical description and insight into race, sexuality and gender. The narrator is intensely flawed and Sutherland's personal way of writing conjures a deeply complex and intriguing character- who, like many of us, struggles to find reason for their irrational actions. This story, although fantasy, is human at its very core. I read it in one sitting.
The blending of genres here works very well, especially in the opening third of the book. It's seamless, and enables Sutherland to beautifully comment on memory and the relationship between past and present. When the narrator speaks of flying with Finola, I began to question which passages were fantasy and which were reality, trying to situate each scene. Then, I shortly realised that this is purposefully impossible within the novel- and more importantly, it doesn't really matter. We all have foggy memories of childhood which feel like a blur, which you can't quite place. We all have glittering memories of days much nearer to the present which still make us question 'Did that really happen?'. After all, what is a memory if not a fantasy of the past? Sutherland's writings of the narrator's childhood are nostalgic, misty, twisted and jarring all at once.
Sutherland is grasping at a greater meaning for all the pieces he has laid upon the table, willing them to connect, but he hasn't done the heavy lifting for any kind of narrative payoff. Perhaps this was the intent, to leave a broken image of a life of struggle, but unfortunately it didn't entirely click for me.
I really did enjoy this novel and I think it's definitely worth a read. I promise! I was thoroughly engrossed in the narrator and their life, however when I think a little too hard about the book it doesn't strike me as the sum of its parts. There is just something missing for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 23, 2019
I felt that the book was a bit spare when it came to fleshing out characters, but then I realized that it was the authors way of reinforcing just how lost and lonely the main character Cupid really is. Its a story that will definitely make you feel, but it's not for the faint of heart, as you can dig down beneath the layers of pretty fairytale like descriptors to get to the meat of the story.
*spoilers
*
This is a story of a young man who has lead a very tragic existence. The author lightens the narrative a bit by adding a fairytale premise. One has only to read between the lines of the clever prose, realize that it's about a confused, too beautiful boy growing up on the Orkney Islands in Scotland.
My take on this is that he was picked on because there was something just a bit different~ I'm guessing sexual orientation. From the very beginning, there is something undefinable that makes people uncomfortable.
As he grows into a teen he finds out that he has a magic touch when it comes to sex. Here I think the author gave the protagonist nicknamed Cupid, a touch of mythological Venus like powers. He does this creatively rather than simply saying he was exceptionally good at sex.
Fast forward to 2002 and our protagonist, who upon leaving the island, did many odd jobs and embracing his sexual prowess slept around LOTS with both male and female alike, ends up living as a rent boy in London.
There seems to be something about this character that screams use and abuse me, as the author mentions in passing some of the depraved acts that his clients force on him. He seems doomed to give pleasure and never get the true love that he has been searching for.
In the end he dies tragically of hepatitis, which the author describes as " turning to gold" giving over to the fantastical to make palatable what would otherwise be a very bleak and tragic tale.
*spoilers
*
This is a story of a young man who has lead a very tragic existence. The author lightens the narrative a bit by adding a fairytale premise. One has only to read between the lines of the clever prose, realize that it's about a confused, too beautiful boy growing up on the Orkney Islands in Scotland.
My take on this is that he was picked on because there was something just a bit different~ I'm guessing sexual orientation. From the very beginning, there is something undefinable that makes people uncomfortable.
As he grows into a teen he finds out that he has a magic touch when it comes to sex. Here I think the author gave the protagonist nicknamed Cupid, a touch of mythological Venus like powers. He does this creatively rather than simply saying he was exceptionally good at sex.
Fast forward to 2002 and our protagonist, who upon leaving the island, did many odd jobs and embracing his sexual prowess slept around LOTS with both male and female alike, ends up living as a rent boy in London.
There seems to be something about this character that screams use and abuse me, as the author mentions in passing some of the depraved acts that his clients force on him. He seems doomed to give pleasure and never get the true love that he has been searching for.
In the end he dies tragically of hepatitis, which the author describes as " turning to gold" giving over to the fantastical to make palatable what would otherwise be a very bleak and tragic tale.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
March 30, 2023 Venus as a Boy - Luke Sutherland
This novella was part of my Magical Realism module at University. I began reading not really knowing what to expect, and although there was small hints that this book was magical realist, it gripped me as more of a hard-hitting account of forced prostitution and abuse in Soho, and the magical realist parts seemed like a way for the protagonist to escape the horrors of his life. At first I found the plot quite gripping and raw, but I put the book down 60 percent of the way through and when I picked it back up, I wasn't engaged at all. The plot is raw, but it is very much 'this happened then this happened then this happened' and it wasn't as appealing to me as some of the other books I was reading.
You will enjoy this book if you like:
Reading books that you are unsure whether are real or fiction
hard-hitting life stories
You will not enjoy this book if:
You expect the magic to be fantastical and obvious
Quotes:
•You get to appreciate how like constantly holding your breath life is.
•Fate isn't all-encompassing. It doesn't own you. You get signs and make your choice.
•True love'll open the skies, but so will agony.
•And she said: Everything that goes right eventually goes wrong. And course I was like: But that's not living. You've no chance of happiness if you never risk anything. And she said: Maybe happiness is just the knowledge that there's something better out there. Constant longing. That way you can never be disappointed.
5/10
This novella was part of my Magical Realism module at University. I began reading not really knowing what to expect, and although there was small hints that this book was magical realist, it gripped me as more of a hard-hitting account of forced prostitution and abuse in Soho, and the magical realist parts seemed like a way for the protagonist to escape the horrors of his life. At first I found the plot quite gripping and raw, but I put the book down 60 percent of the way through and when I picked it back up, I wasn't engaged at all. The plot is raw, but it is very much 'this happened then this happened then this happened' and it wasn't as appealing to me as some of the other books I was reading.
You will enjoy this book if you like:
Reading books that you are unsure whether are real or fiction
hard-hitting life stories
You will not enjoy this book if:
You expect the magic to be fantastical and obvious
Quotes:
•You get to appreciate how like constantly holding your breath life is.
•Fate isn't all-encompassing. It doesn't own you. You get signs and make your choice.
•True love'll open the skies, but so will agony.
•And she said: Everything that goes right eventually goes wrong. And course I was like: But that's not living. You've no chance of happiness if you never risk anything. And she said: Maybe happiness is just the knowledge that there's something better out there. Constant longing. That way you can never be disappointed.
5/10
June 5, 2017
Magnificent. Not in a jumping everywhere and squeeling sort of way, in a balling my eyes out/jaw dropping at the beauty of it sort of way.
Lately I've been giving 5 stars to books that I love mostly because of the characters and I'd forgive a simplistic plot and writing. This book is the opposit though. I was not attached to the characters but to the words and where they took me. I loved the writing, how fluid and beautiful it was. This book was mindblowing and transporting but in a calm, whimsical, way. It's a mix of realism and divine/surrealism (?), a boy gifted with love and sex, who sees and can make you see Heaven, and can make you come, with a touch. He litterally gives love to people he beds and it changes these people forever.
This book is about queerness, bullying, racism, self-knowledge, love. The plot is quite unique in my opinion, I've never read anything similar to this. I picked up this book because of the title and the cover first, then I realised the books takes place partly in Orkney, where I'm currently living, and that the author is also from Orkney. So it made me want to read it even more. I'm halfway through and loving every word of it. It's so unique and beautiful. Not disappointed I gave it a try even though it's not the typical YA book I usually go for.
Lately I've been giving 5 stars to books that I love mostly because of the characters and I'd forgive a simplistic plot and writing. This book is the opposit though. I was not attached to the characters but to the words and where they took me. I loved the writing, how fluid and beautiful it was. This book was mindblowing and transporting but in a calm, whimsical, way. It's a mix of realism and divine/surrealism (?), a boy gifted with love and sex, who sees and can make you see Heaven, and can make you come, with a touch. He litterally gives love to people he beds and it changes these people forever.
This book is about queerness, bullying, racism, self-knowledge, love. The plot is quite unique in my opinion, I've never read anything similar to this. I picked up this book because of the title and the cover first, then I realised the books takes place partly in Orkney, where I'm currently living, and that the author is also from Orkney. So it made me want to read it even more. I'm halfway through and loving every word of it. It's so unique and beautiful. Not disappointed I gave it a try even though it's not the typical YA book I usually go for.
November 11, 2019
Cupid, the main character of this novel, grows up on a remote island in the Orkneys. Bisexual and gender-nonconforming, he suffers abuse at both the hands of his peers and his father. He leaves home in his mid-teens and gradually travels south, eventually becoming a sex worker in London, at the mercy of a brutal pimp. The first half of this novel is very strong: Cupid has a captivating voice, and the tension between being himself and fitting in to survive works well as a central tension. The beauty of the Orkneys is contrasted with their harsh climate, and then even harsher social tensions and prejudices. Cupid is frequently beaten and humiliated, and yet desperately seeks love among his peers. I found the second half, when Cupid arrives in London, to be less strong. There's a strange gap in the novel, in which Cupid claims to have forgotten seven years, but this isn't delved into at all. Cupid's story becomes much more fragmentary in London, and his character is less believable -- I also wasn't convinced by the narrative's use of magical realism. I was disappointed, because the opening is so compelling.
November 6, 2025
Read for class - 2.5⭐️
Not a thrilling read by any means. I was expecting more from the blurb, because it seemed like an interesting plot. But I truly hated the main character (the racism and rape are unforgivable although they don’t seem to care) and every other character. I didn’t like the ending, and the intro about this being someone whose listened to the main character’s tape - and then writing this - didn’t come full circle at all, which wasn’t satisfying. The story also jumped from moment to moment alot, and the moments that were strung out went on for too long. I also did not like the mystical quality of the narrative — being able to make ppl orgasm with your dick? Yeah okay - Freud would love you. Also, as a bi woman, this really felt like someone who isnt attracted to women tries to write a bisexual man liking women - and it never feels like they actually like women. What I did enjoy about this was the style of writing - I enjoyed the poetic flow and the inner thoughts. Overall, though, not a book I’d pick up again.
Not a thrilling read by any means. I was expecting more from the blurb, because it seemed like an interesting plot. But I truly hated the main character (the racism and rape are unforgivable although they don’t seem to care) and every other character. I didn’t like the ending, and the intro about this being someone whose listened to the main character’s tape - and then writing this - didn’t come full circle at all, which wasn’t satisfying. The story also jumped from moment to moment alot, and the moments that were strung out went on for too long. I also did not like the mystical quality of the narrative — being able to make ppl orgasm with your dick? Yeah okay - Freud would love you. Also, as a bi woman, this really felt like someone who isnt attracted to women tries to write a bisexual man liking women - and it never feels like they actually like women. What I did enjoy about this was the style of writing - I enjoyed the poetic flow and the inner thoughts. Overall, though, not a book I’d pick up again.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 1, 2022
I read this all in one go on a plane and I enjoyed it a lot. It made me want to keep reading. I actually thought it was a true story and then found out it’s not which I think is really clever. It’s very sad and there are some very problematic themes but it’s a very interesting way of telling them and exploring them. I didn’t completely love it because I think it was too short and needed more character development, but then again I think that may have been on purpose. I definitely would recommend this but just can’t quite give it 5 stars because I felt there was something lacking.
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