Review: How Over-the-Top Pornography Ruins an Otherwise Good Story
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 23, 2012
Except for the gratuitous, demeaning, unnecessary and extremely lengthy and frequent pornographic gay sex scenes, "A Younger Man" by Cameron Dane is quite a good story.It's a kind of thoughtful manifesto, advocating the rights and privileges of gay men to have, raise and protect children. The main gay characters, Zane (the younger man) and Noah (the 40-something other gay man) are role models for gay people everywhere in their conduct and beliefs about not only love for one another but for rearing their own children (that would be Noah) and/or their young siblings (that would be Zane).As to the pornography: It is exceptionally graphic; it is not artful; it goes on for page-after-page, endlessly; each episode (somewhat monotonously repetitious) takes as long to read as it would to engage in the acts yourself! I'd estimate that a good 25% of the pages of this book are devoted to these episodes of uber-graphic m/m sex. If the story itself were not so strong and if the two primary characters were not so well-written and well-developed, the pornography would easily have totally ruined the entire book and rendered it mere trash.  The actual consequence, however, is to diminish the literary value of the book and, in my estimation, reduce its value by at least 2 stars on Amazon's rating scale.Zane (25 years old) is the better man of the 2 main characters. He is hard-working, a good provider, and empathic, though nave to an extreme. Noah, older, and recently divorced rescues Zane in a sense, and the two (who are both rather inexperienced in the ways of gay life and gay mating) form a loving relationship. At issue are the custody of Zane's young siblings (ages 14 and 9) and the nearly-ruined relationship between Noah and his father. Noah, equally hard working and earnest, has 2 sons, age about 14 and 19. The melding of their families is part of the hard-fought resolution to the serious interpersonal, psychological and sociological problems each man has. Noah's Achilles heel is his quick need to resort to physical power, revealing a barely hidden streak of violence beneath his masculinity. His near-violence shows even in the porno scenes.Zane's problems are his tendency to trust others too much and to get into financial trouble without realizing the consequences clearly. Yet, Zane emerges as the more adult of the two, time and time again, always being responsible for the care and upbringing of his sibs and generally putting life priorities in the right place. Noah over-worries that the 20 year difference in their age is somehow an issue for anyone. (Duh!)The book takes you through all their trials and tribulations and through the development of their relationship, despite all odds and against all formidable obstacles. As mentioned, the story itself is very good, even a tear-jerker from time to time. It is, however, seriously "over-written" in the sense that the conversations are too long, the psychological torture is made too self-aware, and the pornography is simply and overwhelmingly unnecessary. Holding my nose, I just skimmed page after page after page of it.For including the over-the-top sex scenes, I give the book a -1.0. For creative story it's a 4+. For advocacy of gay rights it's a 5. For general writing it's a 2.75. For character development it's a 4. Thus, on average, feeling generous, I give it an over-all 3.25. Just skip the porno. It isn't titillating, and you won't learn anything new unless you've lived in a cave most of your life.