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First and Fiftieth
Martin Foreman's latest collection of short stories comprises first person narratives spanning the globe from Rio de Janeiro to Los Angeles, Africa to Nepal, London to Siberia. Men and women from teenagers to grandparents each speak in a distinctive voice and with intense emotion as love and sex, violence and humour, anger and pathos meet in this kaleidoscope of human comedy and tragedy.
160 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 15, 2002
2 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 8, 2025
First things first - this is a collection of stories by Martin Foreman - a GR listed author - Martin Harth has nothing to do with any of these stories. It should be listed with other works of Martin Foreman but I don't hold out much hope of getting this correction made any time soon.
""Sometimes you sit, watch the trains, the sunset, the rain. Sometimes you talk. Tell your story if you have a mind to. Trouble is, memory changes things. Things you want to forget. Things that you want to remember never happened. Happens to everybody. Gets so, nobody's story's true. Not yours, not mine. But it's all we got."
""We did not see ourselves as losers. We were convinced that the couples who ran businesses together, vacationed in Mexico and planned their retirement in Russian River were no happier then ourselves. We were the ones whose lives had been eventful; each of us had suffered in our different ways and, because we had suffered, we had lived. Now we were free to shut out the present and the past, the noise and the dust, the freeways and the rat race, the threats of earthquakes and violence. Life may have shrunk but life was quiet and quiet was good."
"Martin Foreman's latest collection of short stories comprises first person narratives spanning the globe from Rio de Janiero to Los Angeles, Africa to Nepal, London to Siberia. Men and women from teenagers to grandparents each speak in distinctive voice and with intense emotion as love and sex, violence and humour, anger and pathos meet in this kaleidoscope of human comedy and tragedy." From the backcover of the 2002 paperback edition of this book from Paradise Press.
The Times Literary Supplement said of Martin Foreman's previous collection of stories, 'A Sense of Loss', that they were 'Technically accomplished...literate and dignified.'
I took a look at these stories again to write this review (November 2025) and was astonished at how very good they were. I would love to think that he will be discovered and recognised as an excellent writer but I hold out little hope. The UK had, for a brief moment a varied and rather fine collection of 'gay' writing and publishers. Unfortunately changes in publishing have not produced the renaissance of opportunities to increase the variety and amount published that we were all promised. Fewer books, fewer authors, less variety, less quality. But Martin Foreman deserves to be discovered anew.
""Sometimes you sit, watch the trains, the sunset, the rain. Sometimes you talk. Tell your story if you have a mind to. Trouble is, memory changes things. Things you want to forget. Things that you want to remember never happened. Happens to everybody. Gets so, nobody's story's true. Not yours, not mine. But it's all we got."
""We did not see ourselves as losers. We were convinced that the couples who ran businesses together, vacationed in Mexico and planned their retirement in Russian River were no happier then ourselves. We were the ones whose lives had been eventful; each of us had suffered in our different ways and, because we had suffered, we had lived. Now we were free to shut out the present and the past, the noise and the dust, the freeways and the rat race, the threats of earthquakes and violence. Life may have shrunk but life was quiet and quiet was good."
"Martin Foreman's latest collection of short stories comprises first person narratives spanning the globe from Rio de Janiero to Los Angeles, Africa to Nepal, London to Siberia. Men and women from teenagers to grandparents each speak in distinctive voice and with intense emotion as love and sex, violence and humour, anger and pathos meet in this kaleidoscope of human comedy and tragedy." From the backcover of the 2002 paperback edition of this book from Paradise Press.
The Times Literary Supplement said of Martin Foreman's previous collection of stories, 'A Sense of Loss', that they were 'Technically accomplished...literate and dignified.'
I took a look at these stories again to write this review (November 2025) and was astonished at how very good they were. I would love to think that he will be discovered and recognised as an excellent writer but I hold out little hope. The UK had, for a brief moment a varied and rather fine collection of 'gay' writing and publishers. Unfortunately changes in publishing have not produced the renaissance of opportunities to increase the variety and amount published that we were all promised. Fewer books, fewer authors, less variety, less quality. But Martin Foreman deserves to be discovered anew.
March 3, 2012
The subject matter for a number of these stories is pretty heavy, but Foreman's ability to completely immerse the reader in such a vast range of different voices is astonishing. Could not put it down.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews