Book Review: Yield

This review first appeared in the Nov. 2010 issue of the Orange County & Long Beach Blade.
With his debut novel, Yield is the title, Lee Houck writes of troubled gay youth battered literally and figuratively by contemporary urban life, with a result somewhere between J. D. Salinger, Jack Kerouac, and a John Hughes movie. As a slice of realistic fiction, Yield is set in New York but contains a certain Southern Goth flavor, as if Tennessee Williams found a New York accent. Houck's book won the Project QueerLit 2008 and is published by Kensington.
Houck writes with realism too cynical for a simple romance novel, of the dramas and romances that make up his characters' daily lives:  personality disorder, crime, dead-end jobs, and and the old-fashioned quest for love in all the wrong places. Simon, the main character, works two jobs to get by--as a file clerk by day and a prostitute by night--until he and his model-friend Louis are victims of a string of unprovoked anonymous gang assaults that are terrorizing New York's gay population. Another friend keeps mutilating himself and ending up in the hospital. One of Simon's clients may be a romantic rescuer, then again, maybe not. The story is not about the resolution of the assaults but instead how the hate crimes form just another layer of disorder to these intertwined young lives where any shreds of pleasure are few and far between.
That Houck makes us care about these characters' struggles is what makes the story exceptional. The copy provided for review contains an "alternate" beginning, what the author calls a "DVD extra." Why it was excised from the main story is a mystery because it reveals much about both the author's craft and his characters. It starts as just two guys sitting on a rooftop, observing the neighborhood. Nothing much happens in the way of drama or plot development but it draws us into the world these characters inhabit.
Whether we're members of the GLBT community or not, we live in the same world they do, and struggle with many of the same issues.
Link on Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8628267-yield
Link on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Yield-Lee-Houck/dp/0758242654

"Was Wright's Pardon Wrong?" in Random Lengths (Apr. 4-17, '19)

My article, "Was Wright's Pardon Wrong?" concerning Jerry Brown's pardon of former state senator Rod Wright, ran in Random Lengths, Apr. 4-17, 2019.

Here's the link:

https://www.randomlengthsnews.com/2019/04/05/was-wrights-pardon-wrong/?ct=t%28This+Week%3A+Indy+Wrestling+Pioneers%3B+Wright%27s_COPY_%29
&fbclid=
IwAR3IpGuZakimA0HW5d9bISiKtLzaL6CEHIF2C5NfRmoWSSKtOis61uT8hvw

Here's the lede:

Most remaining records related to former California Gov. Jerry Brown’s pardon of former state legislator Rod Wright became public March 21, the result of a lawsuit by the First Amendment Coalition, which challenged the decades-old California Supreme Court practice of automatically sealing all documents related to executive clemency.

“The public has a right and interest in knowing what justification the governor has in [granting] a pardon,” said David Snyder, the coalition’s executive director.

Snyder recounted that, when the coalition sought the records related to Wright and “about five or six” other cases stemming from Brown’s large number of pardons, they found the court was automatically treating all such records as confidential, inconsistent with California law.

Unlike many other states, California checks the governor’s authority to pardon twice-convicted felons, by requiring approval from the state Supreme Court first. Wright fit the category because he had a prior conviction—from 1972, when he was 19, for auto theft—before his 2014 conviction for perjury and voter fraud, for living outside the district in which he was elected.

Wright spent six years representing the 25th state senate district, which included Carson and Inglewood, and 12 years in the legislature all together.

In 2008, an investigation by the Los Angeles district attorney concluded that when Wright  ran for office in 2007-2008, he was not residing in a “domicile” in the 25th district—in Inglewood, as he claimed.

Wright was convicted on eight counts involving perjury and voter fraud, as he also used the Inglewood address for voting. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail (he actually served less than a day), three years’ probation, 1,500 hours of community service, and ordered to pay $2,000 restitution. He was also banned from ever holding state office again.

Here's the link to Random Lengths:  www.randomlengthsnews.com