Faultlines

<p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>New York-bred Kevin O'Conover white gay and twenty-something thought two weeks in San Francisco would make a fine holiday ... until he woke up in the dark tied up on a concrete floor and with a splitting headache. He finds Thad Heath ex-Vietnam vet black and straight tied to a metal pole beside him. What are they doing held captive in crime boss Jack Corrigan's basement? Corrigan's maid Leona Ramirez helps them to escape in a van about to set out to distribute cocaine at a strip mall drop-off. Two thugs vicious Sam and not-too-bright Kurt are driving and when the boys escape in the mall parking lot there ensues a chase into the woods and hills where Kevin and Thad fall into the rescuing arms of Weslya an off-the-grid reclusive child-of-the-60s pot-toking hippie ...</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>In this madcap verging on surreal adventure Stan Leventhal spares no stereotype of comic treatment while always employing a velvet soft hand: you know goodness rules even when Sam is on the loose. As in caper-style fast-paced stories unlikely coincidences twist the action sometimes like a whiplash: the reader has no choice but to chuckle and succumb. And following a plethora of other characters - a cocaine addled preacher's wife an acolyte who bleeds literally for Jesus an investigative journalist wearing brown polyester suits two sizes too big two dykes as fire marshals and Paula Bluefeather who ... well it's a faerie-tale after all and the fun is how it all works out.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>His second novel </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Faultlines</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. It returns to print for the first time as part of ReQueered Tales' complete edition of Stan Leventhal's fiction. A foreword by Alexander Inglis is included.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(29 34 40 1)></span><em style=color: rgba(29 34 40 1)>Faultlines</em><span style=color: rgba(29 34 40 1)> is a page-turner ... Stan Leventhal has still many a twist up his sleeves and excels in what one calls 'spinning a perfectly good yarn.' - </span><em style=color: rgba(29 34 40 1)>Rainbow Book Reviews</em></p><p><br></p><p><span>���������</span>Stan was a literary activist who always gave to built and endorsed literature and writers. On this Sunday morning all these years later I can still see Stan in his apartment window on Christopher Street next door to the Stonewall Inn overlooking Sheridan Square as he typed away. - Michele Karlsberg</p><p><br></p><p>Stan Leventhal was wonderful company: warm honest curious engaging and human. [His writing] is the next best thing to hanging out with him. - Christopher Bram</p>