To be honest, I had large reservations about this novel when I joined the QX office last week and found it lying amongst the detritus that my illustrious predecessor had left behind upon his desk.
If the gratuitous title ‘Faggamuffin’ – vaguely insulting to both homosexuality and those of Jamaican descent – were not enough to put readers off, the image of a black man in a thong upon the front cover not only made the book distinctly tube-unfriendly but indicated the reading material inside may simply consist of sub-par gay Afro-Caribbean erotica.
However, that old adage ‘never judge a book by its cover’ remains true, and, as a white boy from Bristol, I found the tale of Cutty, a gay Jamaican record producer forced to flee a homophobic mob who burn down his studio and murder his lover, an engaging read. When he spends the last of his money on a plane ticket to Britain and lands in London, he becomes involved with a West London drugs click to make cash, and as his relationship with the click’s leader Buju escalates beyond that of friendship, many insights were provided into the world of modern UK black culture, particularly amongst male youths, and its attitudes to homosexuality.
When the click occasionally forays into Soho to sell pills a neat counter-balance is provided between Cutty and Buju as ostensibly doyens of an aggressively straight culture, secretly having sex with one another behind the rest of the click’s backs, and the world of the ‘batty boys’ they see on Old Compton Street who have contemporary homosexual identities very far removed from anything they can envisage for their lives.
Of course, I assumed that the author, John R. Gordon, would be black. My mistake. He is actually a white gay male author who writes on Afrocentric topics, and it was strange how that fact made me wonder briefly whether the Jamaican speech patterns he writes for his main character (‘me haffi go a foreign’) were less authentic record than aping of a vernacular.
However, a good story is a good story regardless of the author’s caste or creed, and whilst ‘Faggamuffin’ is not exceptionally well-written, it’s text a little long and a little sensational, its characters, detail and subject matter make for an enjoyable and recommended read.
• Team Angelica Publishing, £9.99. www.teamangelica.com
