ISO
I love book clubs. For $1 a book, you can join clubs with interests ranging from art to science fiction, to computer science. Currently, I am a member of QPB (Quality Paperback Books). Once a month or so, QPB sends me an over-sized envelope filled with a catalog and various fliers, all advertising great books and CD’s at great prices. It is easier than driving to a bookstore, although not as much fun to peruse. Occasionally I join another club, but I always come back to QPB. I used to be a member of the Science Fiction Book Club and have always wanted to join the history, math and science book clubs that occasionally advertise in Scientific American. All those books. When I was younger, and seemingly did little else other than read, I would buy four or five books a month from the clubs (plus four or five from the bookstore, and check out another dozen or so from the library). Now I am older and lazier, and usually only get one or two books a month. Mostly I like looking at the covers and reading the description. It is a form of voyeurism: spying on the books. Sort of like going to the local bookstore and reading a paragraph here, a sentence there, peeking beneath the skirts, as it were. Therefore, I am very excited when I get a new book club offer. I may not buy often, but I do enjoy the browsing.
When I received the blue and fuchsia (not quite pink, but not quite purple, my wife assures me it is fuchsia) envelope, covered with vibrantly colored quotes, including the promise of “something for everyone!”, I was excited. It was with some curiosity that I opened the envelope. I had not heard of “iso”, but the promise of “shockingcultclassics…outrageouscampfaves…modernmust-have…”, all at an ultra-cheap 4 for one dollar each sounded too good to pass up. Still, it was a bit odd that a book club would forget the spaces between words, and not realize that ellipses are supposed to have a space between each dot . . . It has been ages since I read Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls and Generation X (Tales for an Accelerated Culture) by Douglas Coupland. It was time for a cult classic. As an avid camper and traveler, I also looked forward to some outrageous camp faves — perhaps Bill Bryson had put out a new travelogue. Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words was quite good, and very informative, as was A Short History of Nearly Everything. Still, I like his travel tales best. Or perhaps something by Doug Lansky, editor of There’s No Toilet Paper on the Road Less Traveled: The Best of Travel Humor and Misadventure. As for modern must-haves, well, I must admit that outside of the occasional Tom Robbins or Tom Wolfe, I have not had time to read much beyond trade publications, Scientific American, and Cooking Light. Still, I was interested to see what iso had to offer. Maybe there would be something new I could fit in. After all, I have been considering Lynne Truss’ Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation for quite some time (and as anyone who has read anything I’ve written, you can see that I desperately need it!). Maybe it was time to finally purchase it. And for a dollar a title, how could I go wrong?
Then I opened the envelope. “insightout®books Our Words, Our Lives, Our Books” greeted me from the cover of the first insert, along with two young men gazing smilingly at one another, well coiffed, toothy-grinned, and in matching exquisitely cultivated stubble. With their brightly colored blue and yellow shirts (that is to say, one wore blue, the other yellow), these guys didn’t look like campers. Could it be that I misunderstood the meaning of cult classics? Perhaps they were Mormons. Obviously, I had just inferred the wrong meaning of cult. It was cult, as in religious sect, not cult, as in American Popular Culture. Why, then, would there be a picture of queer eye FOR THE Straight GUY on the cover? Like most mainstream Christian sects, Mormons are rather uptight about homosexuality (to say the least). “ISO brings it all home… the hottest LGBT books & more!” There they go with those stubby little ellipses. iso needs an editor. Or at least a proofreader. And what is an LGBT book? Less Graphic Boy Toys? Lazy Gophers Bite Toes? Lions Growl Blatantly Tonight? Liquid Gas Blows Tank? It was a riddle. There were two more covers displayed; maybe there was a hint in the titles.
Greg Herren’s Jackson Square Jazz did not look much more promising. A lean young man in jeans and an unbuttoned red dress shirt (I think he must have been a friend of the man in yellow and the man in blue, but they cut him from the photo shoot due to lack of stubble) was being grabbed around the waist and neck by another young-looking man with a mustache or goatee, who appeared to be nuzzling his neck. Was this a vampire novel or a treatise on Greco-Roman wrestling? Considering the psycho-sexual implications of the vampire myths, this seemed somewhat odd. Vampires traditionally choose attractive young female victims, preferably virginal. Of course, there’s always Anne Rice’s LeStat, who doesn’t seem to care whom or what he sucked. perhaps this was a modern must-have . . .
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris just completely threw me. Self-help? Must be a modern must-have as well. I do not really need help in dressing my family: I find that having no fashion sense makes it much easier and quicker to get dressed in the morning. The boy-child and I just grab t-shirts and jeans. The girl-child occasionally spends a little more time choosing clothes, but usually does the same as the boy and I. My wife is willing to put effort into her dress, but that is because she cares. I’d rather focus on more important things — like what to eat for breakfast. An egg sunny-side up and some browned potatoes with onions, fresh-ground pepper, and a little freshly grated mozzarella (perhaps a dash of cilantro as well) taste oh-so good. But oatmeal will help me live longer and better. Damn, I hate decisions like this.
The front cover was a bust. Maybe there is something better inside. QPB usually puts their bestselling choices on the cover, although they also tend to be the books I am least interested in. Still, this did not bode well for iso’s appeal. So far, it appeared not to be providing my words, my life, or my books. Gender confused vampires? Queer fashion tips? A clothing how-to? iso was batting 0 for 3. It was time to open the catalog. “Welcome to ISO, the LGBT book club that brings it all home.” They certainly like variations on a theme. Down the left side were shots of book covers with the following titles: Damron: Mens Travel Guide (tour guide to breweries and football stadiums?), queer eye for the Straight Guy (yes, I really could use some fashion sense), Latter Days (back to the Mormons again, it appears), Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (budgets? Or is this fashion again), Quickies 3 (meals in a hurry?), The Master (religion? Or are we discussing slavery?), Huddle (ah, football. Or is it rugby?), The Body of Jonah Boyd (no clue), The Joy of Gay Sex (huh? What? Wait! . . .), and Fabulous (sorry, still thrown by that last one). Next to that is the index. Page 4: gayfaves. Page 6: uncommonlives. Page 8: triangleclassics. I was starting to see a pattern. The lack of whitespace was an affectation. And this was not my usual book club. Come to think of it, this wasn’t even a book club geared towards me. At the bottom of the page is a mission statement, which makes this very clear:
“InsightOut is dedicated to:
– providing an inclusive and welcoming book-lovers’ community for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans gender (LGBT) readers and their friends and families
– sustaining the voices of our community by supporting emerging LGBT writers and preserving our essential LGBT classics
-supporting LGBT organizations and events that are making a difference in the fight for LGBT freedom, equality and free expression”
Okay. Now I had a definition for LGBT. And a bit of confusion. How did I end up on this mailing list? While it is true that I enjoy reading anything by Bruce Villanch, I do not think that makes me gay. I thought it just meant that I enjoyed reading entertaining and interesting books. An interest in the writings of an entertaining author who happens to be gay does not translate into an interest in gay erotica, or so I thought. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe this is why White/Right America is so anti-homosexual: They know that just reading an openly gay author’s works will turn you to the light side. I hope not, because I am not sure how I would explain the switch to my wife.
The front of the envelope tantalized with “shockingcultclassics…”, the back with “Our Words, Our Lives, Our Books” and “We’ve got something for everyone!”. How is The Joy of Gay Sex or Quickies 3: short short fiction on gay male desire our words? Our books? Gay sex isn’t in the top ten of things I enjoy. Not even in the top 10,000. Come to think of it, as a heterosexual male, I have never enjoyed gay sex. Of course, having never experienced it, I have never not enjoyed it either. Still, just the thought makes me slightly uncomfortable. Almost as uncomfortable as the thought of my parents having sex. Ick. So far, the promise of something for everyone has been a complete letdown. The focus is on literature for gay males. Even the lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered have been left out in the cold.
On page 3, there is a letter of welcome from the InsightOutBooks Editor-in-Chief, David Rosen. He explains the Our Words, Our Lives, Our Books… but David, I’m neither gay, lesbian, bisexual, nor transgendered. I am comfortably heterosexual and really not all that interested in experimentation. You seem to be selling your books based on sexual orientation, not quality of literature. As such, wouldn’t it make more sense to market it to your target audience? Or is this an outreach program? Just as some religious right organizations attempt to “convert” the wayward homosexual, are you trying to convert the wayward hetero? If so, I think you made an error in judgment. I tend to choose favorites, and stick with them. Sure, the menu is full of all sorts of interesting items, but I stick with black-pepper lamb, sechzuan shrimp, and sweet and sour pork. I like sex with women. I am married. Why on earth would I consider bisexuality or homosexuality now? I am satisfied with what I have. Why do you feel these books would be relevant to me? The closest I’ve come to gay is watching Philadelphia, or sitting through anything with Nathan Lane. I squirm when Tom Hanks and Antonio Banderas lock lips. I am interested in books because they are entertaining, well written, and/or informative about some subject which I find interesting. I do not find man on man sex interesting. I am not interested in a book just because its author is interested in a same-sex relationship or changing gender.
True, I often find lesbian erotica arousing, but I can get that in QPB. I can also get offers for books supposedly based on their literary merit rather than their author’s sexuality. Flipping through the catalog, a few books catch my eye. Page 4 contains The Concrete Sky and The Book of Salt. Both sound interesting. The Master, on page 5. But are these available elsewhere? I check QPB Online, and yes, they are all available, as well as many more titles of much greater interest than the primarily gay porn available at ISO. They are also less expensive at QPB. So why would I buy from ISO? Page 32 contains a plethora of interesting titles. But these are all on the “Non-LGBT bestsellers” list. In other words, these are the same books I get at QPB. Why do I need ISO? The offer is for a community to which I clearly do not belong (although I do appreciate the offer; so many groups are becoming more exclusive rather than inclusive these days. Maybe iso though a little straight eye for the queer guy was in order). It is not my life, not my words, and for the most part, not my books.
The books I am interested in are available in QPB, but with a broader selection. So why should I join? The free overnight bag? I don’t think so. If they threw in an appearance on Hollywood Squares, with Bruce Villanch, I might reconsider.
Obviously, these are not my words, not my life, and for the most part, not my books. Something for everyone seems to hold true, though. But as I stated earlier, I get a greater selection of what I want through QPB, including all the gay porn offered at ISO, and QPB doesn’t need to offer to ship my selections and catalogs in a discreet envelope (hopefully a bit more discreet than the blue and fuchsia envelope with colorful writing that this offer came in).
As I said, I like books because they are good, not because the author is gay or straight. This club, for the most part, is apparently basing its literary criteria on the sexual orientation of the authors and/or the subjects. This seems a very poor choice for me. There are 128 books and CDs listed in the catalog. Of those, 19 are mainstream fiction, CDs, or biographies. The rest are predominately man-on-man erotica, with the occasional lesbian tales, history of gays, or activist books. Gay/lesbian coming of age, coming out, and crime tales. Somehow, in this collection of something for everyone, gay men are offered a vast selection, heterosexual men and women are offered a smattering of books, lesbians get a slightly smaller collection, little or nothing specifically for the bisexual community, and absolutely nothing for the transgendered community. Wait, there is Lavender Road to Success: The Career Guide for the Gay Community. So the transgendered can have a career, just no fiction, self-help, or inspirational tales. Although perhaps they would appreciate Harvey Fierstein’s The Sissy Duckling. Hmmm . . . come to think of it, would my kids like that one.
Some of the lesbian erotica interests me, but I currently have enough of that. The mainstream selections are interesting, although I already have most of them. A few of the queer books that sound more like literature than the Adventures of Jack and Jim in the Bathhouse interest me, but all are available at QPB, and at lower prices. QPB offers The Snow Garden for $11.99, ISO for $13.00. QPB offers Waiting for Gertrude for $12.99, ISO for $21.95. Say it loud and say it proud: We’re gay and we overpay. I think I will stick to my QPB.
