The P-town Chronicler Checks In

Jacob Z. Flores, author of three light, frothy P-town gay romances, takes on bears and bear culture in his latest, When Love Gets Hairy.  In his first two novels, Flores made Provincetown sound pretty formidable with hordes of randy gay guys roaming the sidewalks and beaches searching for Mr. Right, but imagining the same scene with bears, who take up a lot more space, becomes nearly frightening.

Fortunately, the bear of note, Teddy--bad jokes, Mr. Flores, ugh!--is too nice and kind to be scary.  His romance counterpart, non-bear Nino, however, is a little more challenging to like.  And the love of Teddy's life is about as deep and likable as a sidewalk puddle.

But no matter.  Flores isn't going for an in-depth psychological study of his gay men, especially in P-town where fun and anonymous sex are the names of the game.  It's the time of year to let one's hair down and during Bear Week, there's a lot of hair around.

Fun And Love

When fun and games turn into fun and love, a vacation after a breakup veers into love in Jacob Z. Flores' When Love Takes Over, reviewed today at AAR.

Flores delves into all the craziness of Provincetown, Mass, in this flamboyant look at getting away from it all.  Zack is distraught over being dumped, so he heads to a resort he finds on the back of a gay magazine.  There he meets porn super-bottom Hart Throb (aka Van), whom Zack doesn't recognize presumably because he doesn't watch online porn.  Right.

That's only the first of moments where I didn't believe.  Fortunately, Flores is a good enough writer and his writing style is light enough that it was easier to go with the flow than over analyze all the plot twists that rivaled a Coney Island roller coaster.

Although the subject matter is deeper than the writing style, readers who are lying on a beach hoping to get the perfect tan can spend enough enjoyable hours reveling in the antics of P-Town inhabitants and visitors to fill out a lazy day.  A few alcoholic beverages and a passing parade of beautiful young bodies might even cover over the plot holes that would otherwise make a reader's brow furrow.

So lie back and enjoy this book on its own terms.  The cover says it all: Relax.