Boy Caesar - Softcover

Jeremy Reed is the author of seven novels and five works of non-fiction. He has won the National Poetry Competition, the Eric Gregory Award, and the Somerset Maugham Award. He is also the author of well-received biographies of Lou Reed, Marc Almond, and Scott Walker.

In his latest work, this English novelist known for his edginess provocatively parallels past and present. The past, within the parameters set here, is the third-century reign of Roman emperor Heliogabalus, who extravagantly, even ruinously, ruled for a brief four years before the army murdered him at age 18. His reign was marked by his overt homosexuality, marriage to a man, and worship of a sun god. The novel's present features a young gay man as well, named Jim, who, in contemporary London, is writing his doctoral dissertation on Heliogabalus. In the face of an actual paucity of biographical records, Jim has to fill in many blanks to re-create the young emperor's life. Thus, the portions of the novel given over to Heliogabalus' life are filtered through James' consciousness, and such anachronisms as "genome" and "pop-star appearance" are liberally sprinkled throughout (which is, nevertheless, an appropriate narrative technique in this case). The novel is sexually graphic but brilliant in its employment of history and its understanding of historical research. Brad Hooper
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