Hello fellow fans,
I'm kind of a posting newbie, although I've read everything Dom has written. I just finished rereading The Ordinary Us, which is my favorite story, and I have to say once again just how engaging it is ! I'm going to start by confessing obnoxiously that I'm a literature graduate student and I'm not supposed to enjoy this sort of fiction... so, I initially classified it as a guilty pleasure in my mind (of course you're allowed to despise me for being a snob). However, I've been reading other gay fiction online and I have not come across another story which is written as well as Dom's, so I'm more tempted to classify it as a pleasure now, period.
I love the way the characters come to life and how the sex is never gratuitous, but plot-driven. The language is nuanced and never crass (is anybody else put off by opening paragraphs where the main character decides to describe himself and announces his length and girth to the world?).
I love the humor and great supporting characters in Dom's stories. There is little repetition (I've read stories that seem to have to tell the reader everything , instead of allowing him/her to infer) and the writing is overall pretty mature; even the adult characters seem believable to me and don't often fall into sounding like supportive/homophobic stereotypes. I loved it when Dom started to explore the third person narrator for a change, which allowed more flexibility to his narrative technique, in stories that were incidentally gay-related like TOSOM.
Why Dom has not thought of publishing his writing is beyond me. Has he addressed this issue at all?
I was happy to see that someone is trying to make a screenplay out of the Ordinary Us, and I do hope that they are able to contact Dom. It would be a great movie!
I am as disappointed as everyone on this board that Dom has disappeared from our radars... I hope he does come back from his writer's block!
In the meantime, I was wondering if anybody could point out to me any specific stories that could match Dom's quality of writing?
I asked this a year ago and some people sent me names from the GA site. I read quite a few stories, but have as yet to come across anything as brilliant as TOU or TLW. I think I've been spoiled. Maybe you could suggest gay literature that I could buy? I've mostly read nineteenth century and early twentieth century stuff (Oscar Wilde, E.M Forster and such) which is why I ask. I've read depressing contemporary gay literature, but I was wondering if anybody knows of uplifting stories (I think this is as much of a guilty pleasure for a lit student as any--we're supposed to enjoy only tragedies and I do love my Shakespeare, but sometimes I need romantic comedies for a change)
Thanks in advance for your answers!