The Gay Place Summary and Reviews

The Gay Place
by Billy Lee Brammer

The Gay Place
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Book Summary Information

Author: Billy Lee Brammer
Introduction: Don Graham
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1995
ISBN: 0292708319
Number of pages: 560
Publisher: University of Texas Press

Book Reviews of The Gay Place

Book Review: Brammer's Masterpiece
Summary: 4 Stars

Billy Lee Brammer's THE GAY PLACE deserves its acclaim as one of the great political novels. Brammer beautifully--and that really is the right word to describe Brammer's ear for dialogue--recreates the political world of 1950s Texas of which LBJ was the undisputed king. Governor Arthur Genstemaker is pure LBJ, so much so that one gets the sense that this novel was must reading for Robert Caro when Caro set out to write the definitive biography of the one time president. What is also obvious with the book is how much politics is not a happy place, that the lives of the participants are empty, that relationships are ruined, and that alocohalism and unfaithfulness are givens.
It is anything but a gay place.

Why not then a five star review given the praise above? The three pieced together extended stories--"The Flea Circus," "Room Enough to Caper," and "Country Pleasures"--really should have been novels each on their own. In extending each, Brammer would have been able to work through some of his pacing issues and also the conclusion to "Room Enough to Caper."

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