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Dangerous Desires
Rocketing readers into a global universe of hidden desires and revealing the otherness of being gay, these three stories and three novellas comprise a stunning and erotic debut by the maker of the prize-winning film A Death in the Family. Winner of the PEN First Book Award.
240 pages, Paperback
First published August 10, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 16, 2026
In 2023 Karl Kraus wrote in his review of this book 'I'm more than a little surprised that this collection of pitch-perfect stories, now more than twenty years old, has yet to garner a Goodreads review' unfortunately it is a state affairs which remains true in 2026 (except for Karl Kraus's excellent review - which I highly recommend you also read - and this review) when I post this. If ever there was a case of shocking and undeserved neglect this collection of story stories is. It is almost inexplicable that writing which in 1991 gathered praise such as:
'An extraordinary literary debut'
'Seldom does an author's first collection have such impact...Dangerous Desires is a provocative, intelligent and challenging text.'
'Powerfully dramatic, strongly visual, explicitly sexual fiction.'
'Powerful, passionate and stylish...combines brilliance with balls.'
'These stories, and the characters who inhabit them, are unforgettable; this is a book you will read more than once.'
I can't help wondering if Peter Wells now has no reputation even amongst readers in New Zealand (where Peter Wells was born and lived throughout his life)? I have included all these quotes because I agree so strongly with them, particularly the last. I found these stories and characters unforgettable and have read them again and again over the past thirty years though I have never previously posted a proper review. It was to rectify this that led me to read these stories again (I was also impelled by my disappointment with a string of recent highly praised novels). I was struck not simply by the quality of the stories but how well they held up and how they still seemed relevant - so much highly praised writing quickly dates and seems irrelevant. The stories in 'Dangerous Desires' are rooted in their time but speak beyond it. One of the finest stories, I thought, is 'One of THEM!' a portrait of two adolescent friends on the verge of acknowledging that they are gay. What Wells portrays so well is the boys avoidance of 'acknowledging' what their behavior appears to proclaim - because this a story about the closet and how faced with the condemnation of family and society the boys withdraw into the closet - a place of concealment but also apparent safety.
The story is a portrait of the time immediately before the echoes of Stonewall in the USA and helped energize the battle of change in places such as New Zealand. Without grand guignol purple prose Wells conjures up the horrors of the closet that so many gay men had to bury themselves in to survive. That it was so often a self immolation doesn't lessen the horror. It is a reminder that acceptance is something terribly new and dangerously fragile (see my footnote *1 below). In his story 'One of THEM' Wells captures the time he grew up in but its pitch perfect honesty provides a warning for the future but, and of course this is what makes these stories so brilliant, there is not a shred of either propaganda or portentous foreshadowing. There are no crudely specific or didactic lessons in these stories and the way AIDS runs through them in an essential but quiet way is masterful.
I am tempted to go on and on praising the way Peter Wells created such memorable characters and tackled complex and shifting scenarios but I want anyone inspired by this review to read these stories not to be burdened by to much of my exegis. There are many things to be found in these stories - great pleasure more than anything else and most importantly these are not simply 'gay' stories about 'gays' or of interest to 'gay' people. These are stories about our neighbors, our family members, they are all our stories because great stories are not simply mirrors reflecting what we know. Great stories are like an Escher drawing - tantalising and fractured in what they reveal to us of ourselves.
*1 The removal of the rainbow flag from the Stonewall memorial in New York [see https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2... for the full story and context] is a perfect example of this.
'An extraordinary literary debut'
'Seldom does an author's first collection have such impact...Dangerous Desires is a provocative, intelligent and challenging text.'
'Powerfully dramatic, strongly visual, explicitly sexual fiction.'
'Powerful, passionate and stylish...combines brilliance with balls.'
'These stories, and the characters who inhabit them, are unforgettable; this is a book you will read more than once.'
I can't help wondering if Peter Wells now has no reputation even amongst readers in New Zealand (where Peter Wells was born and lived throughout his life)? I have included all these quotes because I agree so strongly with them, particularly the last. I found these stories and characters unforgettable and have read them again and again over the past thirty years though I have never previously posted a proper review. It was to rectify this that led me to read these stories again (I was also impelled by my disappointment with a string of recent highly praised novels). I was struck not simply by the quality of the stories but how well they held up and how they still seemed relevant - so much highly praised writing quickly dates and seems irrelevant. The stories in 'Dangerous Desires' are rooted in their time but speak beyond it. One of the finest stories, I thought, is 'One of THEM!' a portrait of two adolescent friends on the verge of acknowledging that they are gay. What Wells portrays so well is the boys avoidance of 'acknowledging' what their behavior appears to proclaim - because this a story about the closet and how faced with the condemnation of family and society the boys withdraw into the closet - a place of concealment but also apparent safety.
The story is a portrait of the time immediately before the echoes of Stonewall in the USA and helped energize the battle of change in places such as New Zealand. Without grand guignol purple prose Wells conjures up the horrors of the closet that so many gay men had to bury themselves in to survive. That it was so often a self immolation doesn't lessen the horror. It is a reminder that acceptance is something terribly new and dangerously fragile (see my footnote *1 below). In his story 'One of THEM' Wells captures the time he grew up in but its pitch perfect honesty provides a warning for the future but, and of course this is what makes these stories so brilliant, there is not a shred of either propaganda or portentous foreshadowing. There are no crudely specific or didactic lessons in these stories and the way AIDS runs through them in an essential but quiet way is masterful.
I am tempted to go on and on praising the way Peter Wells created such memorable characters and tackled complex and shifting scenarios but I want anyone inspired by this review to read these stories not to be burdened by to much of my exegis. There are many things to be found in these stories - great pleasure more than anything else and most importantly these are not simply 'gay' stories about 'gays' or of interest to 'gay' people. These are stories about our neighbors, our family members, they are all our stories because great stories are not simply mirrors reflecting what we know. Great stories are like an Escher drawing - tantalising and fractured in what they reveal to us of ourselves.
*1 The removal of the rainbow flag from the Stonewall memorial in New York [see https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2... for the full story and context] is a perfect example of this.
March 9, 2023
I'm more than a little surprised that this collection of pitch-perfect stories, now more than twenty years old, has yet to garner a Goodreads review. Perhaps that's the fate of literary maiden voyages by gay New Zealand writers, to say nothing of the fact that Wells is better known as a film director and screenwriter.
Rather like Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, the collection is framed/punctuated by three stories tracing the friendship of Eric and Perrin, in particular the latter's demise due to AIDS. The framing of the stories within events of arguably greater consequence -- Eric, for instance, awaits the arrival of Perrin and what turns out to be his bad news while Edwardian/Victorian Auckland is being demolished -- is perhaps not terribly original, but the metaphors aren't belabored or obtrusive.
Other stories demonstrate a keen level of psychological insight (as do, of course, the Eric and Perrin stories). I won't describe all of them. "One of THEM!" is the story of two adolescent boys who despite stereotypical affectations but because of social opprobrium are still only on the verge of realizing they are gay. "Encounter" is the story of a man who, as the privileged scion of a plantation owner (probably on the island of Niue), sexually blackmails a desired servant and lives with both his own fall from status and his shame upon encountering the former servant. "Bum to You, Chum," quite possibly the best in the collection (although the competition is fierce), is the story of a man approaching middle age who, adopted as a child, is in search of his birth mother; what he discovers along the way is both surprising and cathartic. "Of Memory and Desire" -- the one story that is arguably not gay-themed at all -- is the story of a Japanese woman approaching middle age who loses her much younger, better looking, and socially superior husband to a fatal accident on their honeymoon, and her desperate and heartbreaking attempt to cope with the fact. So much is hinted at -- the reader can't preclude the possibility that the marriage may not have turned out to be a satisfying one; that the accident may have been a suicide; that there may have been more than virgin nerves behind his inability to perform sexually in a wholly satisfactory manner -- but of course the lack of certainty overlaps the perspective of the unfortunate woman.
Urgently recommended; five stars.
Rather like Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, the collection is framed/punctuated by three stories tracing the friendship of Eric and Perrin, in particular the latter's demise due to AIDS. The framing of the stories within events of arguably greater consequence -- Eric, for instance, awaits the arrival of Perrin and what turns out to be his bad news while Edwardian/Victorian Auckland is being demolished -- is perhaps not terribly original, but the metaphors aren't belabored or obtrusive.
Other stories demonstrate a keen level of psychological insight (as do, of course, the Eric and Perrin stories). I won't describe all of them. "One of THEM!" is the story of two adolescent boys who despite stereotypical affectations but because of social opprobrium are still only on the verge of realizing they are gay. "Encounter" is the story of a man who, as the privileged scion of a plantation owner (probably on the island of Niue), sexually blackmails a desired servant and lives with both his own fall from status and his shame upon encountering the former servant. "Bum to You, Chum," quite possibly the best in the collection (although the competition is fierce), is the story of a man approaching middle age who, adopted as a child, is in search of his birth mother; what he discovers along the way is both surprising and cathartic. "Of Memory and Desire" -- the one story that is arguably not gay-themed at all -- is the story of a Japanese woman approaching middle age who loses her much younger, better looking, and socially superior husband to a fatal accident on their honeymoon, and her desperate and heartbreaking attempt to cope with the fact. So much is hinted at -- the reader can't preclude the possibility that the marriage may not have turned out to be a satisfying one; that the accident may have been a suicide; that there may have been more than virgin nerves behind his inability to perform sexually in a wholly satisfactory manner -- but of course the lack of certainty overlaps the perspective of the unfortunate woman.
Urgently recommended; five stars.
March 20, 2026
This is an anthology of New Zealand author Peter Wells work of four short stories and three novellas. Other than an excellent novella about a Japanese newlywed couple touring NZ, I did not find any of the other writing compelling. There was a lot of New Zealand terms that made the text more confusing and difficult. I do not recommend this for anyone other than someone who is familiar with New Zealand.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews