The Pink Bus Christopher Kelly 9781590214954 Books
Download As PDF : The Pink Bus Christopher Kelly 9781590214954 Books
A month before Election Day, the Democratic nominee for United States Senate in Texas--a gay reality television star named Patrick Francis Monaghan--takes to the stage to deliver a speech. Before the candidate can begin, he is shot twice in the stomach. As doctors work to save him, the reader is taken on a touching journey through the preceding forty years of Patrick's life. Through a tight and appealing cast of characters, we see Patrick navigate what it is to be a gay man--and a public figure--in our rapidly changing world.
The Pink Bus Christopher Kelly 9781590214954 Books
It's rare for a book to touch on so many worlds - Texas politics, New York publishing, reality television, being gay in the 80s, being gay in 2014 - and have so much to say about all of them. From its hilarious opening to its bittersweet climax, The Pink Bus is never boring and just about never goes where you expect. Kicking off with Patrick Monaghan, a long shot gay candidate for an open US Senate seat in Texas, shot by an unknown assassin during the most important speech of his life, Christopher Kelly walks the reader through all the key moments in Patrick's life that led to that improbable moment. A big-hearted story that could have felt stale in another writer's hands consistently entertains thanks to a rich supporting cast of characters and Kelly's pitch-perfect ear for dialogue.Product details
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Tags : The Pink Bus [Christopher Kelly] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. A month before Election Day, the Democratic nominee for United States Senate in Texas--a gay reality television star named Patrick Francis Monaghan--takes to the stage to deliver a speech. Before the candidate can begin,Christopher Kelly,The Pink Bus,Lethe Press,1590214951,Gay & Lesbian Fiction,FICTION LGBT Gay,FictionPolitical,gay novel; political fiction; political novel; gay fiction; Texas
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The Pink Bus Christopher Kelly 9781590214954 Books Reviews
POLITICAL FICTION/GAY FICTION
Christopher Kelly
The Pink Bus
Lethe Press
Paperback, 978-1-59021-613-2 (also available as an ebook), 276 pgs., $20.00
May 18, 2016
Patrick Francis Monaghan, the first out gay man to run for the United States Senate from Texas (“Homosexualis Texas Politicus – something exotic or endangered”), steps out onto the front porch of the Fort Worth Stockyard Museum and is shot. As he lies there, in and out of consciousness, he ponders the “cosmic cruelty that here he was dying—at age forty, just when he had found what had eluded him for so long, a place in the world.” Monaghan experiences a series of flashbacks from his life, beginning in kindergarten at P.S. 42 in Staten Island, New York, where he was called “Peppermint Patty” by the other kids, an “epithet [that] would stick to him like gum in a girl’s long hair.”
The Pink Bus by Lambda award winner Christopher Kelly is fine literary fiction. It’s funny and melancholic in turn, but always ambitious and original. Kelly is a multitalented writer. He’s equally at home with humor, pathos, and political commentary—sometimes in the same sentence. After the shooting, the “American public was shocked, dismayed, for a few days, deeply ashamed of itself.” This is not easy to do, folks.
Kelly makes good use of the history of assassination and attempted assassination in the United States, beginning with John F. Kennedy and working backward to Abraham Lincoln, with a sobering nod to Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy, Gabrielle Giffords, et al., prompting reflection on our reliance on violence to solve disputes. “This is American history’s prescription,” Kelly writes, “if your wish is to irrevocably silence a man.” It is shocking to be reminded that four American presidents have been assassinated.
This engaging narrative is quick and steady, moving back and forth from the present to turning points in Monaghan’s past, switching third-person perspectives between Monaghan and Nora Meacham, “his best friend, his toughest critic, his walking, talking bull**** detector.” Friends since college, Meacham is also his campaign manager. Their friendship is complicated; they suspect they are soul mates, but a sexual relationship is out of the question.
Monaghan has conducted a lifelong struggle against gay clichés. There is so much more to him than his sexuality, and he doesn’t want to be defined by that single fact. “I want people to respect and understand me as a gay person,” he says, “but not define me as one. Is that too subtle a distinction to understand?” Kelly is outstanding at simultaneously depicting Monaghan’s outrage and emotional vulnerability.
Kelly evokes the sensitive, anxious child Monaghan who always knew he was gay, who became an adolescent terrified of exposure. At fourteen, he thinks he should “stop being afraid and start demanding justice.” Finally, at forty, he does. “The wheel turns slowly, but gloriously it turns.”
Originally published in Lone Star Literary Life.
With heart, punchy dialogue and some entertaining snark, The Pink Bus is a can't-put-it-down read that resonates for anyone that has gone through a winding coming-out journey -- or just enjoys a mash-up of celebrity and politics that fits perfectly with the 2016 zeitgeist.
A smooth, stylish, believable read that traces a fallible politician's short career in the public eye.
It's rare for a book to touch on so many worlds - Texas politics, New York publishing, reality television, being gay in the 80s, being gay in 2014 - and have so much to say about all of them. From its hilarious opening to its bittersweet climax, The Pink Bus is never boring and just about never goes where you expect. Kicking off with Patrick Monaghan, a long shot gay candidate for an open US Senate seat in Texas, shot by an unknown assassin during the most important speech of his life, Christopher Kelly walks the reader through all the key moments in Patrick's life that led to that improbable moment. A big-hearted story that could have felt stale in another writer's hands consistently entertains thanks to a rich supporting cast of characters and Kelly's pitch-perfect ear for dialogue.
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