Reviewed by Jonathan Valelly
The title of Nick Comilla’s debut novel, Candyass, is deceptively spot-on—equal parts sweet and raunchy, with the perpetual possibility of melancholy.
Small-town American boy Arthur moves to Montreal fresh out of high school, arriving to a blurry landscape populated with steamy sex scenes, wayward punks and thumping electronic beats. Hooking up with a series of equally horny and confused young guys, Arthur meets Jeremy early on and quickly instigates his ascension from unwitting suburban beauty to club-queen debutante. But as Jeremy becomes distant, constantly searching for something or someone other than Arthur between magnetic, highly romantic reunions, Arthur moves to New York, pouring his dejection into another unsatisfying and highly dramatic relationship with Jason, a dumb but pretty escort.
If the story here seems somewhat familiar, it’s because it is — tumultuous love affairs and ennui-soaked promiscuity are classic tropes of gay fiction, from Genet to Baldwin to Kramer. Here, Comilla tries to bring these hyper-romantic aches, hungers and anxieties into the 21st century. And while the backdrop of Montreal clubs gives a nice texture to a familiar longing, the endless drama, emotional headaches and erotic romps that make this book initially read, indeed, like candy, become frustrating and more than a bit droll, sustained only by the reader’s desire for Arthur to get out of the empty and abusive traps he inhabits.
Not to say that Comilla isn’t a talented writer—he is. The sex scenes in particular are sensuous and lusty, written in smells, sensations and just enough self-awareness. And to give the book a bit more of the arty edge it’s going for, short poems punctuate the prose: “It’s the look in the looking// That we like— what about that one,/Or that one. It’s the feeling of Falling//That I like.” Like the protagonist, these poems get increasingly despondent and drug-addled as the book goes on—“All of August/caught between/The K holes, babe/the ketamine”—and later, reflecting the brutality of an increasingly scary relationship: “Spike me and/fuck me. Behold a bruise. Amiss, a/ muse. Calm down comatose calm/now smaller doses hold me closer.”
Indeed, as harder drugs become staples of his surroundings and condom use no more than a distant memory, Arthur’s downward spiral becomes increasingly hard to read. The sex and partying continues but gets darker and darker, muting Arthur’s initial spunk and artistic tendencies. Reading the second half of Candyass is icky but fascinating, mimicking that refractory repulsion you feel after you’ve shot your load but the porn is still playing or someone’s hands are still grasping at your tender, tired junk. Suddenly what once seemed fun and sexy seems empty and scary.
What begins as a light and exciting read becomes an exercise in sympathy and eventually lands in a kind of mid-20s gay purgatory that might just hit home for the reader. It’s clear that Comilla has put his heart (and possibly a bit of his own truth) into Candyass. The novel is intense and furtive—just short enough to pack a punch, but long enough to make you feel relieved when it’s over.
Arsenal Pulp Press | 176 pages | $15.95 | paper | ISBN 978-15515206645
‘Candyass’ by Nick Comilla
Book Reviews
The title of Nick Comilla’s debut novel, Candyass, is deceptively spot-on—equal parts sweet and raunchy, with the perpetual possibility of melancholy.
Small-town American boy Arthur moves to Montreal fresh out of high school, arriving to a blurry landscape populated with steamy sex scenes, wayward punks and thumping electronic beats. Hooking up with a series of equally horny and confused young guys, Arthur meets Jeremy early on and quickly instigates his ascension from unwitting suburban beauty to club-queen debutante. But as Jeremy becomes distant, constantly searching for something or someone other than Arthur between magnetic, highly romantic reunions, Arthur moves to New York, pouring his dejection into another unsatisfying and highly dramatic relationship with Jason, a dumb but pretty escort.
If the story here seems somewhat familiar, it’s because it is — tumultuous love affairs and ennui-soaked promiscuity are classic tropes of gay fiction, from Genet to Baldwin to Kramer. Here, Comilla tries to bring these hyper-romantic aches, hungers and anxieties into the 21st century. And while the backdrop of Montreal clubs gives a nice texture to a familiar longing, the endless drama, emotional headaches and erotic romps that make this book initially read, indeed, like candy, become frustrating and more than a bit droll, sustained only by the reader’s desire for Arthur to get out of the empty and abusive traps he inhabits.
Not to say that Comilla isn’t a talented writer—he is. The sex scenes in particular are sensuous and lusty, written in smells, sensations and just enough self-awareness. And to give the book a bit more of the arty edge it’s going for, short poems punctuate the prose: “It’s the look in the looking// That we like— what about that one,/Or that one. It’s the feeling of Falling//That I like.” Like the protagonist, these poems get increasingly despondent and drug-addled as the book goes on—“All of August/caught between/The K holes, babe/the ketamine”—and later, reflecting the brutality of an increasingly scary relationship: “Spike me and/fuck me. Behold a bruise. Amiss, a/ muse. Calm down comatose calm/now smaller doses hold me closer.”
Indeed, as harder drugs become staples of his surroundings and condom use no more than a distant memory, Arthur’s downward spiral becomes increasingly hard to read. The sex and partying continues but gets darker and darker, muting Arthur’s initial spunk and artistic tendencies. Reading the second half of Candyass is icky but fascinating, mimicking that refractory repulsion you feel after you’ve shot your load but the porn is still playing or someone’s hands are still grasping at your tender, tired junk. Suddenly what once seemed fun and sexy seems empty and scary.
What begins as a light and exciting read becomes an exercise in sympathy and eventually lands in a kind of mid-20s gay purgatory that might just hit home for the reader. It’s clear that Comilla has put his heart (and possibly a bit of his own truth) into Candyass. The novel is intense and furtive—just short enough to pack a punch, but long enough to make you feel relieved when it’s over.
Arsenal Pulp Press | 176 pages | $15.95 | paper | ISBN 978-15515206645