Unexpectedly erotic, Hot Off the Presses is the first novel I read by Elliott Mackle. I’m true, I picked this one because I was expecting for it to be a little more “easy” than other more acclaimed works by this author, and indeed it has the above “erotic content” that caught me almost by surprise.

But even with the sex, this is not at all a light novel, it’s about important issues like racism and AIDS prevention, it’s also about the struggle of a man to reconcile his private life with his professional career and commitment.

I quite like, and found original, the impromptu of the story, Henry is the editor of a LGBT magazine owned by a conservative Old Atlanta couple; how it came that an heterosexual and conservative couple owns a LGBT magazine is what makes this at the same time original and sad: the couple’s son, Chad, died in a sea accident with his business partner, and possible lover, Chip, leaving the ownership of their “baby”, a much loved magazine, to his parents. And now Henry is fighting to matching the very reason of existence of the same magazine with the compromises its owners are asking him.

In the middle of all this, Henry is still a gay man and having his needs, needs that, in a AIDS plagued era, he fulfills with anonymous, but safe encounters in the local hot baths; here he meets Wade, pupil of the US gymnastic team, that is raised to be the golden child at the imminent 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Even if Henry is pretty involved with Wade, I really hated this characters; lying and also racists, I really cannot see what Henry found in him, and when Brian enters the scene, I was all for cheering him as substitute of Wade.

As I said there is a lot of sex, sometime probably even too much, maybe since I was not liking the people Henry was having sex with ;-) so of all the sex scenes, I’m probably saving half, but not since they were not well written, but simply since I prefer for the sex to turn into love and happily ever after. Again, unexpectedly, a some sort of happily ever after is in there for Henry, if he is wise enough to grab it.

Good, strong story, with some nice twists and turns, kept me always wondering what was next. Maybe I didn’t like all the characters, maybe not even fully 100% Henry, but as always I say, unlikable characters make for an original, and thought, good novel.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1590213254/?tag=elimyrevandra-20