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Let This 'Search' Be Over
In Search of Pretty Young Black Men
by Stanley Bennett Clay
by Stanley Bennett Clay
As printed here previously on books like In Search
of Pretty Young Black Men, it comes as some
amazement as to why publishers continue to dish
out novels both so pointless and horrendously
written that it leaves worthy, unpublished novelists
by the wayside. It is without a doubt that there are
a multitude of unpublished straight and gay African
American male writers who will never get a chance
to display their talents for books like this. What is
of further amazement (and embarrassment by
turn) is that this novel is by writer Stanley Bennett
Clay, author, director and co-producer of Ritual,
which earned him three NAACP Theater Awards.
The story, what is worthy to tell to a limited extent,
deals with an African American couple who live in a
particular well-to-do neighborhood in Los Angeles
and who are so bored with their lives and marriage
that they each manage to find themselves sexually
connected to the same young man. Not a bad set-
up in and of itself, but predictable mayhem ensues
of course, and not before the reader is inflicted
with the same dull plot lines, devices and narration
used repeatedly by other less talented writers than
Clay, who seek to mimic the success of E. Lynn
Harris. Harris is not the culprit in these instances,
only the writers and publishers who seem to lack
both vision and natural talent.
Additionally, to the consternation of the reader, the
author, following the repetitive models before him,
takes supposedly educated and well-off African
Americans and impairs them with an unbelievable
amount of stupidity and commonness that would
reasonably turn out a text so tacky, mundane and
unoriginal as this. Nothing new is explored here,
no boundaries broken. Even the taboos and sex
scenes, pornographically distasteful, come off less
like daring and more like adolescent immaturity.
And although the book is endorsed by both Harris
and famed sex novel author Zane, don’t believe
this hype. In fact, should you know of a brilliant,
unpublished African American male writer, get a
petition together and send it to your favorite
publisher. Anything, even an untried author, has
got to be better than this mush. P&A
of Pretty Young Black Men, it comes as some
amazement as to why publishers continue to dish
out novels both so pointless and horrendously
written that it leaves worthy, unpublished novelists
by the wayside. It is without a doubt that there are
a multitude of unpublished straight and gay African
American male writers who will never get a chance
to display their talents for books like this. What is
of further amazement (and embarrassment by
turn) is that this novel is by writer Stanley Bennett
Clay, author, director and co-producer of Ritual,
which earned him three NAACP Theater Awards.
The story, what is worthy to tell to a limited extent,
deals with an African American couple who live in a
particular well-to-do neighborhood in Los Angeles
and who are so bored with their lives and marriage
that they each manage to find themselves sexually
connected to the same young man. Not a bad set-
up in and of itself, but predictable mayhem ensues
of course, and not before the reader is inflicted
with the same dull plot lines, devices and narration
used repeatedly by other less talented writers than
Clay, who seek to mimic the success of E. Lynn
Harris. Harris is not the culprit in these instances,
only the writers and publishers who seem to lack
both vision and natural talent.
Additionally, to the consternation of the reader, the
author, following the repetitive models before him,
takes supposedly educated and well-off African
Americans and impairs them with an unbelievable
amount of stupidity and commonness that would
reasonably turn out a text so tacky, mundane and
unoriginal as this. Nothing new is explored here,
no boundaries broken. Even the taboos and sex
scenes, pornographically distasteful, come off less
like daring and more like adolescent immaturity.
And although the book is endorsed by both Harris
and famed sex novel author Zane, don’t believe
this hype. In fact, should you know of a brilliant,
unpublished African American male writer, get a
petition together and send it to your favorite
publisher. Anything, even an untried author, has
got to be better than this mush. P&A
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