Book Review: Rabbis of the Garden State by Daniel Meltz

Reviewer: Alan Chin

Publisher: Rattling Good Yarns Press (2025)

Pages: 296

Rating: ★★★★

Set in a working-class Jewish family, an eleven-year-old Andy becomes aware of his divorced mother’s obsession with their synagogue’s new spiritual leader, Rabbi Landy. Her obsession transforms their ordinary family life into something puzzling, and for Andy, begins a growing resentment and eventual humiliation. At the same time, Andy begins to explore his own sexual longings with a best friend who has green teeth. As Andy’s sexual universe expands, he is thrust into yeshiva and he finds himself attracted to his Talmud teacher, Rabbi Loobling. Thus, mother and son travel along parallel paths as Andy explores his faith and desires. 

 

As the story progresses through Andy’s young life, eventually attending college and coming out, mother and son must come to terms with each other. Their path eventually reveals all their surprisingly complex family secrets that shock the entire New Jersey shores.

 

Daniel Meltz’s debut novel is a delightfully crafted story weaving a tapestry of complicated relationships. These are serious subjects told with humor and many heartfelt scenes. The story captures the flavor of adolescence, the temperament of the 1960s, and the relations between people who both love and hate each other. 

 

The author’s use of the first person POV narrator gives and in-depth window into Andy’s character, which is both complex and entertaining. The novel is well researched and puts the reader into every scene. I found the first half of the book funny and fanciful, the second half more serious and touching, with many reveals and plot twists. It kept my interest until the surprising ending. 

 

I look forward to reading more from this talented writer.

 

 

Book Review: Drought by Scott Alexander Hess

Reviewer: Alan Chin

Publisher: Rebel Satori Press (June, 2025)

Pages: 158

Rating: ★★★★★ 

 

A recluse from Newark, New Jersey, Parnell, inherits his Uncle Willy’s tobacco farm in Kentucky. Parnell moves to the farm hoping to finally make something of his failed life. Parnell, it turns out, is no farmer. He seems to possess no life skills at all. He is a big man, so large he struggles just lifting himself off a chair and walking to the next room. Yet with this inheritance, he prays he can achieve something for once in his life. On the farm, three things become abundantly clear: 1) The tobacco farm is in ruins due to a sustained drought, 2) Parnell can’t save the farm without substantial help, and 3) there was a great deal more to Uncle Willy than Parnell could ever have imagined. Parnell soon befriends Darl, who works at the local Sonic Drive-in, also John, an unusual pastor. Both guide Parnell down a path that literally unearths a long-hidden crime. This path, however, also gains Parnell a new sense of self.

 

Drought is a deftly crafted yarn. The fears, loneliness, anxieties, and surprising intimacies touch something deep in me. I loved this novella. I’ve read several of Scott Alexander Hess’s novels and Drought is my favorite. I loved it for its quirky characters, for its compassion, for its unexpected plot twists. It began slowly, but with beautiful writing and an excellent voice. For me, the story really unfolds when the POV switches to Uncle Willy’s backstory. This backstory describes a stunning love story, told with patients and charm, nothing rushed, nothing missed. It really grabbed me. Then the story swings back to Parnell’s POV and glides to a bittersweet conclusion, ending on a note of hope. 

 

This novella is a gem. Short but wonderful. This author has demonstrated that with plentiful talent, one can write an engrossing yarn in very few pages. 

Indian Wells Tennis Tournament

Every year, my husband and I manage the ball kids at the Indian Wells Tennis tournament. We just finished the tournament a week ago. For my husband and I, it was almost three weeks of nonstop work every day, several days of seventeen-hour days on only five- or six-hours sleep. We believe it all ran smoothly, with my hubby Herman at the helm calling the shots. It did take a huge toll on Herman and I. By the end of the first week, we were both physically and mentally exhausted. It will take us weeks to fully recover. 

 

Some highlights:

Hugo Umber visited the ball tent

Ugo Umber and my hubby Herman

Ball kids of the Year, Sid and Deanna, with Tournament Director Tommy Hause

 

All the Ball Kid management team

Book Review: The Feast of Panthers by Sean Eads

Reviewer: Alan Chin

Publisher: Queer Space (August 23, 2022)

Rating: ★★★★

Pages: 420

 

All of Great Britain is thrown into jeopardy by an ancient Egyptian deity seeking to reestablish her religion in the heart of nineteenth century London. She is ruthless, merciless, and lethal. Her loyal followers are formidable shift changers who prefer to take the shape of panthers when they hunt their prey. As she gains followers and power, she decides she needs Oscar Wilde to become her high priest. With his abundant talent for writing, she wants him to write the most awe-inspiring invocations to her greatness. Wilde, with help from lovers and friends and even enemies, goes on a campaign to destroy this power-hungry immortal. Throughout the battle to overcome her tyranny, Wilde comes to better understand his relationships with his young male lovers, his wife, close friends, his enemies, and he finds what’s ultimately important in his life. But what helps him most is what the Goddess craves, his own genius as a writer and playwright.

 

An insightful, far-reaching novel pushing the boundaries of human imagination, where the forces that give life value―art, poetry, music, wellbeing, care, loved ones―are thrown into sharp relief. The Feast of Panthers exposes our shared vulnerability, the limits and benefits of compassion, and the fragile nature of being human. 

 

I confess I’m not a devotee of fantasy/thriller fiction, but I am a huge fan of well-crafted writing, and so I very much enjoyed this novel. This story has vibrantly drawn characters overcoming hideous foes. It is a story of survival, but more so it is an entrancing story of realizing love of those closest to you. 

 

The Feast of Panthers is a skillfully crafted yarn. The fears, loneliness, anxieties, and surprising intimacies seem genuine, and carry the reader along.

 

Like so many formula thrillers, this story leaves the reader feeling satisfied. It is a stimulating read with a splash of gay stardust to keep things more interesting.  

 

 

Book Review: Small Rain by Garth Greenwell

 

Reviewer: Alan Chin

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pages: 302

 

Rating: ★★★★★

A man’s life is thrown in jeopardy by a sudden, wrenching pain in his gut that thrusts him into the heart of the dysfunctional American healthcare system. Now a prisoner in an ICU ward, surrounded by an army of healthcare workers—some caring and competent, many indifferent and/or incompetent—he struggles to understand what is happening to his body, his life, and the man he loves.

A penetrating, far-reaching novel pushing the boundaries of human experience, where the forces that give life value―art, poetry, music, wellbeing, care, loved ones―are thrown into sharp relief. Feelings expand and contract: sense of time, fear, hope. Intimacies bloom. Fears crush. Small Rain exposes our shared vulnerability, the limits and benefits of sympathy, the ideal of art, and the fragile dream of America. Above all, this is an unexpected love story. 

 

An incredible novel… I confess in many ways I found this a horror story. The descriptions of the dysfunctional American healthcare system were both shocking and depressing. But this story has vividly drawn characters, many of them heroes, overcoming a hideous situation. It is a story about survival, but more so it is a beautiful love story. 

 

When the protagonist goes into the hospital with a ruptured blood vein, he’s close to dying, and because this happens during the height of the COVID epidemic, he is allowed no visitors. He is separated from a man he loves while faced with dying. This is a tender story of being divided from a loved one and the life you’ve created with him at the point in your life when you need him most.

 

Small Rain is an exquisitely crafted yarn. The fears, loneliness, concerns, and surprising intimacies seem genuine, and carry the reader along. The prose read like a diary, but the voice is one with the refinement of a seasoned professional.

 

I have now read three Greenwell novels. The other two, Cleanness and Mitko, were equally remarkable. Greenwell has quickly become one of my favorite gay writers. I can’t wait to read his other story, What Belongs to you.

 

 

Gong Wei Fat Choi!!!

May the Year of the Snake bring you good fortune, good health, and mucho happiness. Wishing everyone lots of happiness and prosperity in this year of the Snake. Happy New Year 2025!

Let it Snow Snow Snow

Palm Springs normally gets snow on our beautiful mountains before Christmas. The year, however, two days ago was our first rain in a year, and hence, our first snow on the mountain for this season. We love our snowy peaks.