Telling Lies About the Wolves Review

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(More customer reviews)Telling Lies about the Wolves, the new book of Mason Powell's "literary tales," is a great treat and a pleasure to read. These fourteen stories, written between 1978 and 1984, represent a startling variety of styles, and each one is an understated gem by the renowned Berkeley writer.
Many of the stories concern homosexuality, directly or peripherally, and Powell paints magnificent pictures of the LA. theater scene, San Francisco's South of Market hustling world, high school jock culture, and more,in colorful studies of intimate relationships undergoing powerful change
The first two stories in the book, one funny and one almost painfully tender, touch on the author's high school experiences with girls, the movies, male friendship under fire, and teenage sexual identity. "Bruce Hagarty: All-American" also explores the fine line between roles that gay men must play. In this case, a professional sports hero's personal fantasy life is revealed to a perfectly--drawn stereotypical gay couple, with unexpected and humorous results.
"At a Party in Pasadena", one of the two "supernatural" stories in this collection, plays with spirit possession or channeling, as it meets knee-jerk Kinsey-scale self-definition. The main character falls in love with a sexual spirit briefly inhabiting the body of his male heartthrob, but, as it happens, the next time the spirit appears it is in another body....a woman's!
The other story dealing with the supernatural is "Chisolm Legacy", a hard-core western ghost story. Powell creates a frightening, atypical haunted--goldmine--inherited--from--crazy--uncle yarn of terror, torture, and the salvation of love
"Coming Out" is a charming and very funny coming--out--to--parents story with a twist. "Trash Body" could be subtitled, "Three drag queens exchange marvelous, weird, and bizarre pickup stories while looting a dumpster".
And the title story, "Telling Lies about the Wolves", describes the unlikely events leading to the author's journeying to Alaska with a crew filming a B--movie sequel about wolves. The deliciously detailed, eventful movie-making process is disastrously interrupted by a theatrical accident, when a "controlled" explosion starts an avalanche, and a war of personalities becomes a battle for survival.
Powell's published novels range from the excellent cop mystery "For the Love of a Green-eyed Piano player" to the heavily erotic S&M classic "The Brig." His short stories have been published all over, and are fairly hard to find, so this collection will please Powell's longtime fans and engender new ones.

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