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(More customer reviews)Joey is a stereotypically-shallow gay "club kid" in his late 20's, who lives for his friends and their nightly club excursions. Joey's father had deserted his family before then immigrated from the Philippines when Joey was a boy, and, despite his college degree and a good paying white collar job, Joey still lives with his mother and sisters, with little direction or motivation in his life other than designer clothes, the best clubs, the most attractive tricks, and the popular drugs to enhance the club experience. He actually longs for a meaningful relationship, and realizes he isn't likely to find one among his fellow club kids.
When a club DJ falls from his booth, landing at Joey's feet, he briefly has second thoughts about the shallowness of his life. When the same thing happens the following week, he worries that someone is trying to send him a message. The inevitable conferences with the police, including a transexual officer who seems to suspect Joey had something to do with the murders, and an ill-advised night spent with an older man who arranges "boy tours" for Asian-loving tourists, plunge Joey into a world of deceit and lies that threaten his safety and that of his friends.
If you don't speak "club kid", you're bound to pick up some phrases from this book, which was written by a self-admitted devotee of that scene. You'll also pick up some Filipino slang, and a young immigrant's view of the problems of his native country. Well written, and occasionally very witty, though primarily a fluff piece best enjoyed by those who are a part of the club scene depicted. I give it four stars out of five.
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Half the fun is guessing who the characters are based on!Dropping was no big deal for Joey De Vera. Everyone at Klub Galaxy took "party favors." They were circuit boys and they lived the fast-lane life of sex, drugs, designer jeans, and disco dancing. That is, until the night the DJ dropped--dead--and the trail of clues led Joey across dance floors on both sides of the Pacific Rim to a shocking discovery. Smart, suspenseful, and wickedly funny, Drop ... Dead: The DJ Murders is an inside look at gay circuit parties and clubs, set in San Francisco at the height of the dot-com boom and filled with topical references that will leave you wondering, "Hey--is that who I think it is?"
From the author:"Inspired by Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, I originally wrote Drop ... Dead one episode at a time, which I sent out every other week to an e-mail list. Like Tales of the City, it has a lot of topical references that will have readers trying to guess who the characters and places are based on. In fact, the club where most of the action takes place is a real place-or was. Although I poke fun at the party scene and its denizens, Drop ... Dead also makes some serious points about the craziness of the war on drugs, the lessons of the AIDS epidemic, and why we need harm reduction."
Drop ... Dead: The DJ Murders offers an unvarnished view of the gay party scene and a multi-cultural, metrosexual, gender-bending cast of characters--including an Asian-American hero, a straight couple, a 1970s activist-turned-circuit boy, a police officer of ambiguous gender, a sinister transsexual, and the hilarious but ominous "pod boys."
An excerpt from Drop ... Dead: The DJ Murders:It was 3:07 a.m. by Joey's Pop Halo watch and a bank of sweat and stale disco smoke was rolling across the dance floor of Klub Galaxy like skanky fog. Joey tried blinking but he could barely see past the end of his arm.
One glance up, though, and he knew exactly where he was. Beneath the spinning lantern, dead center of the dance floor of San Francisco's biggest queer night klub. This was his spot, where he danced every weekend, surrounded by hundreds of glistening male bodies sliding against each other like sausages in a meat factory while the deep house mixes of dj Marcus Barker made the air vibrate in front of his eyes.
Or was that because he was rolling? No, because he was hardly rolling at all. Marcus B had just spun out his favorite song--Madonna's "Music" (albeit, a tragically flawed mix by Rumblesnatch)-and he should be flying but he wasn't. Manny and his damn Little Buddhas. They should call them Little Putas, just like him.
Then Joey heard the unmistakable opening beats of "Dive in the Pool," a song he detested with every fiber of his being.
That's it, he decided, I'm dropping again.
Drop ... Dead: The DJ Murders is a must read not just for fans of murder mysteries and detective stories, but for anyone who enjoys comedy and satire as well. The book also appeals to anyone interested in queer cultural politics, the social policies of the war on drugs, and the world of today's gay circuit parties and dance clubs.
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