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Original Essays | December 12, 2009

Alexander McCall Smith: IMG The Courage of Others

0 comments By Alexander McCall Smith

I have recently written a novel about life in England during the Second World War. I felt some concern before I tackled this theme — the War... Continue »
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God Says No

by James Hannaham

God Says No Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Review:

"A tender, funny tour of a mind struggling to do the right thing. A revelatory and sympathetic guide to a misunderstood world." Steve Martin

Review:

"James Hannaham's God Says No introduces a groundbreaking new American voice: a writer of spectacular sentences who has trained his sights on a world that has hardly been touched by literary fiction. Topical and ambitious, disturbing and hilarious, God Says No is everything a person could ask of a first novel — and twice that much." Jennifer Egan

Review:

"This novel is an absolute original. Gary Gray's search for wholeness and acceptance is a heartfelt (and often very funny) plea for all men (and women) to be embraced just as they are. A wonderful debut." Martha Southgate

Review:

"God Says No is a book that was desperate to be written but well out of reach. And then James Hannaham came along and wrote it, with the kind of care, wit, sympathy and fury that the book deserved. Imagine Candide... okay, imagine Candide as a black man, a southerner, a Christian fundamentalist, middle-class, obese, married, a father, and utterly, even profoundly gay. If a comedy, in the classical sense, is a story then ends in a marriage, and a tragedy is a story that ends with a death, then what do you call a book that ends with a split and a resurrection? A truly daring first novel, and something to read." Jim Lewis
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amabre, September 16, 2009 (view all comments by amabre)
The protagonist is Gary Gray, a God fearing, food loving black man struggling with his sexuality.

Early on in the novel, you discover Gary's feelings for his college roommate cause him to impregnate his girlfriend. He leaves school and gets a job, gets promoted, and gets a cozy apartment for his new family. He wants desperately to be a "family man" and he really does try but he's having trouble in the bedroom which puts pressure on his new marriage. Work is sending him on more and more business trips. Gary needs some man action. And he gets some. In public parks and public restrooms, all the while concerned that God is watching him.

Gary takes on a few different identities, trying to avoid or indulge his sexuality. There are lots surprises along the way...The ending is not too happy, not too sad but redemptive and believable. During most of the novel I pitied Gary...but his story was engaging!
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Product Details

ISBN:
9781934781401
Author:
Hannaham, James
Publisher:
McSweeney's Books
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Homosexuality -- Religious aspects.
Subject:
Christian gay men - Religious life
Edition Description:
Trade Cloth
Publication Date:
May 2009
Binding:
Hardcover
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
302
Dimensions:
8.50 x 6.00 in
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