The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Distortion by Stephen Beachy
Trevor Dodge

Stephen Beachy. Distortion. Harrington Park Press, 2001. 318 pp. Paper: $22.95.

The best of American gay/lesbian fiction tends to discuss sexuality not simply for the sake of discussing sex, but to use sexuality as a metaphor for reality. Inevitably, the best practitioners of gay/lesbian fiction lead us not into detailing romps between surrogate hims and hers, but into exploring the interplay between identity and reality in a larger society of spectacle and illusion. Stephen Beachy’s Distortion eagerly attempts such an exploration and is largely successful in its endeavors. The novel is centered loosely around the travels of Reggie, a gay mulatto “case” who has spent the better part of his young life falling in love with his father, and, as a result, will invariably spend the remainder being “studied, poked and prodded by all sorts of organizations, departments, and elaborate psychological ideologies, as if he was a mysterious machine that the right series of drugs, words, or disciplinary measures would turn into whatever it was that was the opposite of a case.” Reggie’s exploits along the highways, flyways, and byways of America are shadowed by a strong critique of media culture via David, an experimental filmmaker who is almost sadistically preoccupied with questioning Christianity, and Marvin, a megalomaniacal producer who embodies his own pithy statement that “matter loves to be perceived.” And while the scene is all-too-perfectly set for some crippling fiction-workshop-styled psychoanalysis of Reggie’s various problems and syndromes, Beachy instead pursues describing the spaces where Reggie’s life has real meaning, no matter how dark, despondent, or (at times) utterly incoherent they may be. Impromptu trysts in slimy hotels for drug money, flaccid airplane conversations with complete strangers, and the simple misery of having to sit for any amount of time in the bathroom of a Greyhound bus are all rendered in painstaking, hypersensual detail. [Trevor Dodge]


Interview with Founder Board of Directors Funders Submission Guidelines Dalkey Archive Full Catalog Current and Forthcoming Titles Recent Titles Review of Contemporary Fiction Special Library Offer Special Backlist Sale Stores & Wholesalers Academics Libraries Reviewers Context Casebooks Author Interviews Links Dalkey Archive News Events Newsletter

The Review of Contemporary Fiction Distortion by Stephen Beachy Trevor Dodge Stephen Beachy. Distortion. Harrington Park Press, 2001. 318 pp. Paper: $22.95. The best of American gay/lesbian fiction tends to discuss sexuality not simply for the sake of discussing sex, but to use sexuality as a metaphor for reality. Inevitably, the best practitioners of gay/lesbian fiction lead us not into detailing romps between surrogate hims and hers, but into exploring the interplay between identity and reality in a larger society of spectacle and illusion. Stephen Beachy’s Distortion eagerly attempts such an exploration and is largely successful in its endeavors. The novel is centered loosely around the travels of Reggie, a gay mulatto “case” who has spent the better part of his young life falling in love with his father, and, as a result, will invariably spend the remainder being “studied, poked and prodded by all sorts of organizations, departments, and elaborate psychological ideologies, as if he was a mysterious machine that the right series of drugs, words, or disciplinary measures would turn into whatever it was that was the opposite of a case.” Reggie’s exploits along the highways, flyways, and byways of America are shadowed by a strong critique of media culture via David, an experimental filmmaker who is almost sadistically preoccupied with questioning Christianity, and Marvin, a megalomaniacal producer who embodies his own pithy statement that “matter loves to be perceived.” And while the scene is all-too-perfectly set for some crippling fiction-workshop-styled psychoanalysis of Reggie’s various problems and syndromes, Beachy instead pursues describing the spaces where Reggie’s life has real meaning, no matter how dark, despondent, or (at times) utterly incoherent they may be. Impromptu trysts in slimy hotels for drug money, flaccid airplane conversations with complete strangers, and the simple misery of having to sit for any amount of time in the bathroom of a Greyhound bus are all rendered in painstaking, hypersensual detail. [Trevor Dodge]

Search the full text of our books: