The Palace of Varieties

By: James Lear

Narrated by: Daniel Carter

Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

The gay, raucous and raunchy adventures of a hunky, horny naïf in 1930s London.

Paul Lemoyne is a callow but resourceful 18-year-old who leaves the hinterlands for the big city. A steamy tearoom tryst initiates him into London's gay underground and lands him a job at the seedy Palace of Varieties, where the nonstop backstage blow jobs make the tacky onstage acts seem tame. "As hairy as a donkey and hung like one as well!" as one of his astonished bedmates notes, the indomitable Paul rises quickly from stagehand doing every man in sight to well-heeled rent boy and reluctant thief. He can't pass a salon, studio, back alley, or bathhouse without sampling its erotic possibilities. But when he falls into the clutches of butch, sadistic impresario Albert Abbott, even Paul's country-boy mettle may not help him. James Lear's distinctive mix of page-turning prose, droll humor, explicit sex, and memorable cast of sex-crazed studs of all ages, shapes, and inclinations make this an exciting companion to The Back Passage and Hot Valley.

©2008 Cleis Press (P)2011 Cleis Press

Nasty and Arousing

Full of sex and filth. Interesting story that will aweken your senses. Interesting take on the thirties.

Poop and pee is where i draw the line

This book is really depraved.
I've read James Lear before, so i knew that going in. Its filled with erotica and goes from one scene to the next slowly getting more and more filthy.

So i didnt expect vivid explanations of the smell of dry urine, drinking urine, getting peed on and even explanations of feces after sex and the feces left over after sex to be used as erotica as well. Especially the moments where feces were mentioned.
It really distracted me and made me a little queezy. Why did it have to go there's? This book is filthy enough, it didn't need to literally be filthy.
X.x

The overarching story is filthy and doesn't add much other then for loose explanations to get to the next scene. This main character gets used for his body a lot. Thats a given though due to his line of work. Although it's definitely not painted as a respectful career and very much paints it as sinfully depraved and disrespectful.

It was sorta fun seeing the main character get more and more depraved, used and exploring sexuality. Just have to block some of the more disgusting moments from my head to finish the book.

Classic Lear, Always Adore Daniel Carter

Pretty classic James Lear and I enjoy the way he does this kind of story. Definitely loved it as an audiobook. I was craving Daniel Carter's gorgeous English accent... nobody reads James Lear the way he can, so matter-of-fact, it truly works.