The Intoxicating Mr Lavelle: Shortlisted for the Polari Book Prize for LGBTQ Fiction

by Neil Blackmore

Paperback, 2021

Status

Available

Call number

823.92

Genres

Collections

Physical Books, EvaStreet

Publication

Windmill Books (2021), 336 pages

Description

1764- Two brothers are sent off on a Grand Tour of Europe to meet People of Quality. Instead they meet the man who will destroy everything. 'Seductive, decadent, cruel and utterly thrilling - just like Horace Lavelle himself. This is The Talented Mr Ripley for the twenty-first century.' Emma Flint, author of Little Deaths 'An enjoyable dip into decadence.' Observer Brothers Benjamin and Edgar have so far led a quiet life, but change is afoot as they enter a world of glorious sights and People of Quality on their Grand Tour of Europe. But a trunk full of powdered silver wigs and matching suits isn't enough to embed them into high society. As Edgar clings on to conventions, Benjamin pushes against them. And when the charming, seductive Horace Lavelle promises Benjamin a real adventure, it's only a matter of time before chaos and love ensue. 'A fizzing, seductive queer romance.' i Paper 'Wildly entertaining and painfully heartbreaking ... Neil Blackmore writes with a fizzy wit that bounds his characters off the page.' Ben Aldridge… (more)

Media reviews

Irish Times

Neil Blackmore’s new novel is not just played for laughs; it is an insightful study into a period of history often overlooked in fiction

— 2 more

Sparkling Pretty Bright

But The Intoxicating Mr Lavelle, which is full of love and pain, hope and crushing, lifechanging disappointment and dark sadness, proves that what we want may not be what we get, even when we hold to something perfect and pure, because we are broken people, and broken people, despite their best

intentions, always break things, something fatally and without any hope of redemption, even when thrilling, hopefully possibility is staring right in the face and has the capacity to free them from their existential imprisonment.

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Liam Reads

Every bit as seductive as its title suggests, The Intoxicating Mr Lavelle is one of my favourite books of the year and a must-read for any fan of queer romance and gothic fiction.

User reviews

LibraryThing member AdonisGuilfoyle

If I pick another duff book this month, I'm going to give up reading and start watching boxsets instead. And this was a Christmas present!

An inferior mash-up of Call Me By Your Name and The Talented Mr Ripley, neither the novel nor the eponymous antihero live up to the many enticing adjectives

lobbed at them. Mr Lavelle is far from charming, ironic and especially satirical ('Satire, Benjamin? How drunk are you?') He's just an overgrown teenager, trying to shock younger kids by using rude words. He is a complete knob, which is handy, because that's all Benjamin wants from him. (Can you guess who didn't believe that either man actually loved the other?)

In fact, the best part of this book is the beautiful cover, which - I must confess - lured me in. The historical setting is limited to men stripping off breeches and stockings instead of jeans and t shirts before they shag each other and completely ruined by the anachronistic dialogue ('moron', Mr Lavelle's favourite insult, was coined in 1910, for instance). The characters are all flimsy cliches, from the scoffing toffs to the leering 'sodomites', and the plot reads like a Victorian melodrama.

Recommended for readers seeking gay soft porn with literary pretensions - everyone else, try Brideshead Revisited instead.

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