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Alone
Has Grindr killed psychic gay powers?
For Halloween I’m dressing as a YouTube video of Corey Haim, when he was still alive and talking about kissing girls, feeling like dolphins were swimming through his blood. And I’d dress as the helpline 1-800-C-O-R-E-Y that he set up when he was seventeen, when he was high and giving advice to young fans about how to stay off drugs.
The pièce de résistance of my costume would be the contrast that the viewer makes in their mind between the image of Corey Haim in The Lost Boys with a beautiful smile and skin that looks healthier than you’ve ever seen and the TMZ report of pneumonia and the enlarged heart that killed him and the question about whether the reader would carry through the metaphor and make the link between the dolphins he said were in his blood and what they would look like now.
For Halloween I’m dressing as a YouTube video of Corey Haim, when he was still alive and talking about kissing girls, feeling like dolphins were swimming through his blood. And I’d dress as the helpline 1-800-C-O-R-E-Y that he set up when he was seventeen, when he was high and giving advice to young fans about how to stay off drugs.
The pièce de résistance of my costume would be the contrast that the viewer makes in their mind between the image of Corey Haim in The Lost Boys with a beautiful smile and skin that looks healthier than you’ve ever seen and the TMZ report of pneumonia and the enlarged heart that killed him and the question about whether the reader would carry through the metaphor and make the link between the dolphins he said were in his blood and what they would look like now.
168 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2020
About the author
Thomas Moore
15 books197 followersThomas Moore's writing has appeared in various publications in Europe and America. His novella, GRAVES (2011), and his book of poems, The Night Is An Empire(2013), were both published by Kiddiepunk. His first novel, A Certain Kind of Light(2013), was published by Rebel Satori Press. His book of poems, Skeleton Costumes, was published by Kiddiepunk in 2014 and again as an expanded second edition in 2015. His second novel, In Their Arms, was published by Rebel Satori in October 2016. A collection of poems, When People Die, was published in 2018 by Kiddiepunk. Also in 2018, Moore collaborated with visual artist Steven Purtill on their book Small Talk at the Clinic, published by Amphetamine Sulphate. Thomas Moore's third novel,Alone, was released in June 2020. His fourth novel, Forever, was published by Amphetamine Sulphate in October 2021. His new novel, Your Dreams, was published in 2023 by Amphetamine Sulphate.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
January 15, 2021
god damn
February 20, 2022
‘alone’ speaks on the whole scope of loneliness. it talks about being left, whether you know you are being left or not. speaking as well about self inflicted aloneness caused by shutting others out. the feelings of betrayal, sadness, and rage at being alone, left, or loneliness. BUT it also talks about the suffocating feeling of not being alone. from the desire to leave ones place in time, or one’s relationship almost to seek out loneliness. it uses at times physical symbols of suffocating forces.
and in conclusion it speaks on death, in a grazed manner and in a blunt one. death being the ultimate state of loneliness. a state so alone that it becomes suffocating. death joins the two themes perfectly.
thomas moore has a way of writing characters that i heavily relate to. maybe it’s just his choices of discussion. but his characters are some of the most similar to me that i’ve read.
and in conclusion it speaks on death, in a grazed manner and in a blunt one. death being the ultimate state of loneliness. a state so alone that it becomes suffocating. death joins the two themes perfectly.
thomas moore has a way of writing characters that i heavily relate to. maybe it’s just his choices of discussion. but his characters are some of the most similar to me that i’ve read.
June 29, 2020
Forever shattering, Alone is a montage of fantasy, memory and outright truth that cuts right the way through to the bone. Moore employs a forensic language here to turn upside down any helpful stories we might all tell ourselves.
May 21, 2023
Thomas Moore is a talented writer. I read Forever last year, and now this morning have just sped through Alone.
His prose is beautifully sparse, raw and relevant. His writing about modern queer life is uncompromising, honest and brutal. (Though I do wonder if someone should text him to just make sure he’s ok!)
Published by Amphetamine Sulphate, more indie publishing of this calibre please!
His prose is beautifully sparse, raw and relevant. His writing about modern queer life is uncompromising, honest and brutal. (Though I do wonder if someone should text him to just make sure he’s ok!)
Published by Amphetamine Sulphate, more indie publishing of this calibre please!
June 18, 2020
Cameron Esposito, A queer comedian I adore, once said: "Love is love, but queer shit is specific."
In our current assimilationist world, we like to believe that growing up gay is the same thing as growing up straight, that our awakening to our own selves sexually and emotionally is the same thing. But oppression and mandatory straight culture and all the other things we endure make our lives very different.
This is the world the narrator of Moore's novel, Alone, describes. Language *does* fail us so often because so often there isn't language for what we experience. Even our experience of the Tiger Beat pin-up boys was different than a teenage girl's because so often we weren't allowed to acknowledge what Wil Wheaton or Jonathan Brandis or Edward Furlong meant to us. There is no way to talk about what their clinical depression, or descent into alcoholism, or suicide mean to us in polite conversation. There is no way to talk about what cruising is like in polite conversation in an assimilationist world.
Hence, alone is safety, alone is understanding, alone is fulfillment in a near-Zen kind of way. The narrator experiences relationships, but they inevitably fail because they involve language. What are "dating apps" but an attempt to use language to get at something much more primal, something that language cannot touch?
*IS* Grindr destroying gay psychic abilities? Yes. But the move from "queer shit is specific" to "we're just like you, suburban straight America" destroys more than that. It leaves so many, like the narrator of Alone, standing in a field in the fog in a lot of ways.
HIGHLY recommended. Get this book immediately.
In our current assimilationist world, we like to believe that growing up gay is the same thing as growing up straight, that our awakening to our own selves sexually and emotionally is the same thing. But oppression and mandatory straight culture and all the other things we endure make our lives very different.
This is the world the narrator of Moore's novel, Alone, describes. Language *does* fail us so often because so often there isn't language for what we experience. Even our experience of the Tiger Beat pin-up boys was different than a teenage girl's because so often we weren't allowed to acknowledge what Wil Wheaton or Jonathan Brandis or Edward Furlong meant to us. There is no way to talk about what their clinical depression, or descent into alcoholism, or suicide mean to us in polite conversation. There is no way to talk about what cruising is like in polite conversation in an assimilationist world.
Hence, alone is safety, alone is understanding, alone is fulfillment in a near-Zen kind of way. The narrator experiences relationships, but they inevitably fail because they involve language. What are "dating apps" but an attempt to use language to get at something much more primal, something that language cannot touch?
*IS* Grindr destroying gay psychic abilities? Yes. But the move from "queer shit is specific" to "we're just like you, suburban straight America" destroys more than that. It leaves so many, like the narrator of Alone, standing in a field in the fog in a lot of ways.
HIGHLY recommended. Get this book immediately.
June 16, 2020
“The sky is doing something again. It always seems to be. Whether it’s a magic trick or acting like it’s holding on to something and trying to send me a message. The colours are merging and the clouds are changing into shapes that I haven’t seen before. For something so huge and endless it’s crazy how it doesn’t feel like it’s going to swallow me alive. Maybe I’m in denial. Maybe I spend so much of my life ignoring it — through fear? I don’t know. But the fact is that it is there the whole time, every second, and it’s only on some occasions that I’m moved to think about it explicitly or comment about it. Am I taking it for granted or is this the only way to fully coexist with something like that — the sky.“ (p. 33 - 34)
And:
“I feel like I’m heavy breathing in time with (and down the neck of) the rhythm but I’m starting to question whether it’s an instrument instead. It feels like I’m listening to a body. There’s some more stuff playing over the top of the body.” (p. 68)
This one came in the mail today, perfect timing as I happened to be between books. I read the first page for sampling purposes, or so I thought. That had been my intent. But instead I just kept going and ended up reading the entirety of it in one sitting, helplessly drawn along by the lean beauty of its prose, even when things got dark (maybe even especially when they got dark).
Alone is really something else. It knocked the wind right out of me. Brilliant work. Highly recommended.
And:
“I feel like I’m heavy breathing in time with (and down the neck of) the rhythm but I’m starting to question whether it’s an instrument instead. It feels like I’m listening to a body. There’s some more stuff playing over the top of the body.” (p. 68)
This one came in the mail today, perfect timing as I happened to be between books. I read the first page for sampling purposes, or so I thought. That had been my intent. But instead I just kept going and ended up reading the entirety of it in one sitting, helplessly drawn along by the lean beauty of its prose, even when things got dark (maybe even especially when they got dark).
Alone is really something else. It knocked the wind right out of me. Brilliant work. Highly recommended.
September 2, 2021
“Choosing to be alone in some ways feels like I’m choosing to take control. To make a choice that will shape a lot of things in my life, and making it consciously. Knowing that I can do this means that I’ve been aware of other choices too.”
Chapter 30 ALONE is worth 5 stars.
Looking forward to Forever.
Chapter 30 ALONE is worth 5 stars.
Looking forward to Forever.
September 30, 2020
‘Alone’ is unquestionably Thomas Moore’s finest book to date.
All of his books are haunted by an intoxicating vulnerability, beauty and darkness, but in his latest novel this is captured even more succinctly.
His prose is inventive, singular and stirring, seizing the reader from the first word and leaving them breathless until the last.
It seems redundant to even attempt to describe how perfectly this work is executed, but it is truly an important book, feeling simultaneously like a dream whilst also being startlingly human.
Moving, scarring and utterly stunning, ‘Alone’ is a remarkable achievement.
June 17, 2020
Absolutely stunning! There were moments that were beyond relatable and hit really hard. Highest possible recommendation.
Read
September 2, 2024spiritually this is in the same vein as dennis cooper's guide to me im really pleasantly surprised by how much heart there is in this writing it's such a relief to know there are artists out there who i'm just discovering that understand me perfectly even from within the fundamental failure of language
— "There's no way to make this any different from that crap. Because it isn't. Maybe I should stop staring at this .jpeg that I've been staring at, or maybe it might take something else to distract me from the fact that I'm trying to find ways to justify these warped little crushes that used to dominate my life (there I go using the past tense as a convenient lie again), and yeah maybe I should just keep talking about haunted woods. I just want you to stop looking at me like that."
— "There's no way to make this any different from that crap. Because it isn't. Maybe I should stop staring at this .jpeg that I've been staring at, or maybe it might take something else to distract me from the fact that I'm trying to find ways to justify these warped little crushes that used to dominate my life (there I go using the past tense as a convenient lie again), and yeah maybe I should just keep talking about haunted woods. I just want you to stop looking at me like that."
July 4, 2020
Easily my favorite thing that Thomas Moore has written, although his other works are amazing, too. This work seems much more personal, though, and topics that he's focused on in the past are taken out of a less ghostly perspective to a down to earth, inside of Moore's personal brain perspective. As a gay man, the brutal honesty throughout the book and how much I relate to his experiences just brought me to tears at times. The style is minimalist, quick to read, but still heavy -- not so much the topics, but just the vitality that Moore presents in this book. Definitely recommend, especially if you want to see through the eyes of the gay experience and how isolating and depressing it can be at times.
November 30, 2023
Thomas Moore is essentially a Dennis Cooper clone down to the sentence level - we have an emotionally damaged queer protagonist, bursts of sexual violence, sentences punctured by “… I dunno” and “whatever”, a discussion of the incapability of language, and a text that, fundamentally, strives to convey intimacy/vulnerability/a pure emotional state. But Moore lacks Cooper’s lyrical minimalism - the building blocks are there, but the language (ironically?) never reaches Cooper’s heights.
At its best, Alone touches on greatness, with Moore’s sentences conveying a heartbreaking sense of vulnerability and emotional weight. This is punctuated by insightful reflections on what it means to be alone and the profound intimacy that can be found in casual sex.
At its worst, Alone reads as amateurish, with its minimalism/writing lacking the profundity that’s required for a text like this to truly work. And yet, there is still something charming in this, and there is an emotional honesty in its flaws - one can imagine the narrator (or indeed Moore) sitting in front of their laptop, attempting to convey an experience that defies language.
Put simply, despite his similarities to Cooper and despite the textual flaws, Moore undoubtedly has something to say and remains an exciting voice in contemporary queer fiction.
_______
Alone is the blog you randomly stumbled upon at 3am while peaking on MDMA. You’re on your iPhone, and because your eyes are dilated and twitching slightly, you have to hold the phone just above your face to read the words. The writing isn't perfect, but in your heightened state, you feel yourself identify with the person behind the screen. You feel their loneliness and wonder if their acceptance of it is genuine or just something they’ve convinced themselves of. And you wonder, if it is genuine, whether you can also reach that state. For a moment, you experience a fleeting sense of emotion that’s so intense it’s… you can’t really describe it, but profound is probably close. But then someone changes the music and your friend tells you they’re going out for a smoke. You hug each other, and one of you says “I love you” - it doesn’t matter who. And then you move outside. Together
At its best, Alone touches on greatness, with Moore’s sentences conveying a heartbreaking sense of vulnerability and emotional weight. This is punctuated by insightful reflections on what it means to be alone and the profound intimacy that can be found in casual sex.
At its worst, Alone reads as amateurish, with its minimalism/writing lacking the profundity that’s required for a text like this to truly work. And yet, there is still something charming in this, and there is an emotional honesty in its flaws - one can imagine the narrator (or indeed Moore) sitting in front of their laptop, attempting to convey an experience that defies language.
Put simply, despite his similarities to Cooper and despite the textual flaws, Moore undoubtedly has something to say and remains an exciting voice in contemporary queer fiction.
_______
Alone is the blog you randomly stumbled upon at 3am while peaking on MDMA. You’re on your iPhone, and because your eyes are dilated and twitching slightly, you have to hold the phone just above your face to read the words. The writing isn't perfect, but in your heightened state, you feel yourself identify with the person behind the screen. You feel their loneliness and wonder if their acceptance of it is genuine or just something they’ve convinced themselves of. And you wonder, if it is genuine, whether you can also reach that state. For a moment, you experience a fleeting sense of emotion that’s so intense it’s… you can’t really describe it, but profound is probably close. But then someone changes the music and your friend tells you they’re going out for a smoke. You hug each other, and one of you says “I love you” - it doesn’t matter who. And then you move outside. Together
February 3, 2023
Can't say that this slim volume is anything that I would write home about... I can't say it's badly written except to say that it's written in the style of my own notebooks when I was in my late teens. Whether this style is deliberate or not isn't really an issue, just that it's not the sort of thing I can be bothered with reading anymore, much less writing, and not sure if it's clever enough to pass as being truly interesting or unique... but like with many things, I might give another one this author's books a read in future, as sometimes it's my own head that's stopping me from truly getting something.
March 3, 2021
Romance is self-hallucination. Lies rationalize lust, which ultimately empties out. Odd but fitting, then, that the only real love comes from fucking strangers. Alone doesn’t flinch from its toughisms. But neither does it explain. It whirs and blurs from a place beyond pain, learned in a pre-verbal childhood. Dazzling in fuzziness, the smudgy style speeds the novel’s emotional oomph. Inspirational to other writers. Or anyone wanting to figure this shit out.
July 1, 2020
Full Review Here
Alone is a beautifully written, power meditation on the nature of loneliness and relationships in the 21st century. Of the books I've read from Thomas Moore, this is certainly his best. I highly recommend this novel and I very much look forward to Moore's future work.
Alone is a beautifully written, power meditation on the nature of loneliness and relationships in the 21st century. Of the books I've read from Thomas Moore, this is certainly his best. I highly recommend this novel and I very much look forward to Moore's future work.
November 3, 2020
This sparse and poetic dedication to solitude slices right to the core of its lonely heart, using a collage of online messages, reflections and dialogues reminding me of Dennis Cooper. It was over way too soon.
May 1, 2023
“Has Grindr killed psychic gay powers?”
A spiritual companion to Forever, by the same author Thomas Moore, this novel shows vignettes of a young gay man, dropping us into his life and we as the reader watch as he navigates his life, feeling lost. Alone follows the unnamed narrator and his boyfriend Daniel as their relationship disintegrates. While trying to cope with the end of the relationship, the narrator reflects on his childhood, contemplates the nature of loneliness, reflects on how the internet and hookup apps have changed modern courtship, and feels nostalgia for the days of public cruising. In Alone, the narrator is overburdened by his emotions and his sense of loneliness. Rather than seeking connection, he’s more trying to learn to cope with and love being alone. I found this very relatable, and a lot of the protagonist’s inner thoughts have been things that I have felt throughout my life. I think writers always leave a part of themselves in their stories, regardless of the content of the actual story, and I think I found myself comforted by how much I related to the protagonist and vulnerable parts that the author chose to weave throughout the story. This was comforting despite the sad and dark content. There’s a certain kind of loneliness that queer men experience that isn’t talked about, especially during their coming-of-age and their adolescence. The parts of the story where the unnamed protagonist looks to dead queer men and boys and finds himself empathizing with them and their stories to be very real and relatable. I think this is something that all queer men go through growing up, desperately trying to look to other people who have lived like them and see where they ended up, a desperate attempt at understanding and hope for something better. The passages in this novel about loving to be alone without loneliness sung to me. I loved how certain passages spoke about monogamy and heteronormative relationships, and how queer people don’t naturally see themselves in these kind of dynamics because they never got the opportunity to when they were young, they were never made to feel like they could, so when they could, they didn’t. The passage about finding intimacy in strangers was something that connected with me deeply and is something that I’ve found to be true throughout my life. I’ve never envied or sought out a normal relationship simply because it never appealed to me, I was always comforted by the fleeting nights I’d spend with strangers travelling, and it was almost more romantic and clandestine if I never spoke or heard from them ever again, but just knowing that we connected intimately, crossed paths against all odds of us never meeting, and knowing they’re out there somewhere, adrift in life much like me. I don’t think heteronormative people can understand that feeling unless they’ve been outsiders their whole lives. I loved how the protagonist likens the unspoken signals for sex to mind reading and being psychic. I loved that he spoke about how his time reading people while cruising let him read people in the heteronormative world, and how it helped him figure people out and know what they want before even they did. I related to him when he said that the time of hookup apps threw a wrench in all of this for him, since it was a new language and a new type of skill not taught to him. This is so real for queer men of different generations, so often do you realize the chasms between experiences when talking to queer men from different generations. It can seem isolating, even among the isolated. I liked how the protagonist likened cruising for sex with strangers to be more truthful and primal than the performative dance of heteronormative dating, how the sex he has with a stranger in a park bathroom is more honest than the performance of marriage, and I found that to be so impactful and true. I loved how this book deconstructs monogamy and heteronormativity, and I loved the rumination on what it means to be alone, and being alone as a choice. The conversation towards the end about suicide is going to be controversial to a lot of readers, but I found it comforting and true in a way that doesn’t idealize it or romanticize it. There’s something beautiful in the idea of living and dying alone, but I think a lot of people (because of how they grew up) won’t understand that. But I do, and so does Thomas Moore. And I think that that’s beautiful and ineffable.
“Strangers have given me the most romantic and exciting nights of my life. For brief moments I have felt like I have been able to know them as well as I know myself - I'm able to put that much into the interactions. On the right night, I've been able to lose myself fully and to know a person in as deep a way as is possible. Once the night has been over, I haven't forced myself to try to keep them - to try and own them - to ask them to be in a relationship with me - I can feel strong enough to carry on without them but to have been lucky to have met them for however long and to have shared a kind of intimacy that I just don't think can exist between the hetero-normative couple, ten years into their relationship, trying to compromise all of the time.”
A spiritual companion to Forever, by the same author Thomas Moore, this novel shows vignettes of a young gay man, dropping us into his life and we as the reader watch as he navigates his life, feeling lost. Alone follows the unnamed narrator and his boyfriend Daniel as their relationship disintegrates. While trying to cope with the end of the relationship, the narrator reflects on his childhood, contemplates the nature of loneliness, reflects on how the internet and hookup apps have changed modern courtship, and feels nostalgia for the days of public cruising. In Alone, the narrator is overburdened by his emotions and his sense of loneliness. Rather than seeking connection, he’s more trying to learn to cope with and love being alone. I found this very relatable, and a lot of the protagonist’s inner thoughts have been things that I have felt throughout my life. I think writers always leave a part of themselves in their stories, regardless of the content of the actual story, and I think I found myself comforted by how much I related to the protagonist and vulnerable parts that the author chose to weave throughout the story. This was comforting despite the sad and dark content. There’s a certain kind of loneliness that queer men experience that isn’t talked about, especially during their coming-of-age and their adolescence. The parts of the story where the unnamed protagonist looks to dead queer men and boys and finds himself empathizing with them and their stories to be very real and relatable. I think this is something that all queer men go through growing up, desperately trying to look to other people who have lived like them and see where they ended up, a desperate attempt at understanding and hope for something better. The passages in this novel about loving to be alone without loneliness sung to me. I loved how certain passages spoke about monogamy and heteronormative relationships, and how queer people don’t naturally see themselves in these kind of dynamics because they never got the opportunity to when they were young, they were never made to feel like they could, so when they could, they didn’t. The passage about finding intimacy in strangers was something that connected with me deeply and is something that I’ve found to be true throughout my life. I’ve never envied or sought out a normal relationship simply because it never appealed to me, I was always comforted by the fleeting nights I’d spend with strangers travelling, and it was almost more romantic and clandestine if I never spoke or heard from them ever again, but just knowing that we connected intimately, crossed paths against all odds of us never meeting, and knowing they’re out there somewhere, adrift in life much like me. I don’t think heteronormative people can understand that feeling unless they’ve been outsiders their whole lives. I loved how the protagonist likens the unspoken signals for sex to mind reading and being psychic. I loved that he spoke about how his time reading people while cruising let him read people in the heteronormative world, and how it helped him figure people out and know what they want before even they did. I related to him when he said that the time of hookup apps threw a wrench in all of this for him, since it was a new language and a new type of skill not taught to him. This is so real for queer men of different generations, so often do you realize the chasms between experiences when talking to queer men from different generations. It can seem isolating, even among the isolated. I liked how the protagonist likened cruising for sex with strangers to be more truthful and primal than the performative dance of heteronormative dating, how the sex he has with a stranger in a park bathroom is more honest than the performance of marriage, and I found that to be so impactful and true. I loved how this book deconstructs monogamy and heteronormativity, and I loved the rumination on what it means to be alone, and being alone as a choice. The conversation towards the end about suicide is going to be controversial to a lot of readers, but I found it comforting and true in a way that doesn’t idealize it or romanticize it. There’s something beautiful in the idea of living and dying alone, but I think a lot of people (because of how they grew up) won’t understand that. But I do, and so does Thomas Moore. And I think that that’s beautiful and ineffable.
“Strangers have given me the most romantic and exciting nights of my life. For brief moments I have felt like I have been able to know them as well as I know myself - I'm able to put that much into the interactions. On the right night, I've been able to lose myself fully and to know a person in as deep a way as is possible. Once the night has been over, I haven't forced myself to try to keep them - to try and own them - to ask them to be in a relationship with me - I can feel strong enough to carry on without them but to have been lucky to have met them for however long and to have shared a kind of intimacy that I just don't think can exist between the hetero-normative couple, ten years into their relationship, trying to compromise all of the time.”
April 22, 2022
Went into this relatively blind after a friend hyped it up so wasn’t prepared for how devastating it is (although title and cover should have been clues in hindsight). I also read it in one sitting immediately after finishing a Selma Lagerlöf novel and really wish I had done it the other way around.
An unnamed narrator who feels ‘hardwired for abandonment’ after growing up gay in the foster care system goes through a break-up. Now approaching 40, he reflects on childhood, loneliness and death, the latter of which is intrinsically linked to sex in his mind because of his conservative upbringing at the height of the AIDS epidemic. His relationships with other people become increasingly dulled by social media and Grindr as he reminisces about the era of cruising and ‘gay telepathic powers’.
It's short, very well-written, and stylistically similar to Dennis Cooper minus the extreme violence which I personally appreciate. Despite the generational stuff and overall depravity (not referring to all the casual sex here, but there are unsettling segments involving grooming that none of the other reviews mention), the relatability factor is uncomfortably high at times, especially in the childhood chapters.
It’s a heavy read but mainly because of heavy themes and a general tone of anhedonia -it's nowhere near graphic or sensationalist enough to be labelled tragedy porn and never felt gratuitous (although there's one brief segment where others may disagree).
Chapter 30 in particular was great.
An unnamed narrator who feels ‘hardwired for abandonment’ after growing up gay in the foster care system goes through a break-up. Now approaching 40, he reflects on childhood, loneliness and death, the latter of which is intrinsically linked to sex in his mind because of his conservative upbringing at the height of the AIDS epidemic. His relationships with other people become increasingly dulled by social media and Grindr as he reminisces about the era of cruising and ‘gay telepathic powers’.
It's short, very well-written, and stylistically similar to Dennis Cooper minus the extreme violence which I personally appreciate. Despite the generational stuff and overall depravity (not referring to all the casual sex here, but there are unsettling segments involving grooming that none of the other reviews mention), the relatability factor is uncomfortably high at times, especially in the childhood chapters.
It’s a heavy read but mainly because of heavy themes and a general tone of anhedonia -it's nowhere near graphic or sensationalist enough to be labelled tragedy porn and never felt gratuitous (although there's one brief segment where others may disagree).
Chapter 30 in particular was great.
May 2, 2021
fleeting yet crushing.
December 12, 2021
For Halloween I'm dressing as a YouTube video of Corey Haim, when he was still alive and talking about kissing girls, feeling like dolphins were swimming through his blood. And I'd dress as the helpline 1-800-C-O-R-E-Y that he set up when we was seventeen, when he was high and giving advice to young fans about how to stay off drugs.
The piece de resistance of my costume would be the contrast that the viewer makes in their mind between the image of Corey Haim in The Lost Boys with a beautiful smile and skin that looks healtheir than you've ever seen and the TMZ report of pneumonia and the enlarged heart that killed him and the question about whether the reader would carry through the metaphor and make the link between the dolphins he said were in his blood and what they would look like now.
The piece de resistance of my costume would be the contrast that the viewer makes in their mind between the image of Corey Haim in The Lost Boys with a beautiful smile and skin that looks healtheir than you've ever seen and the TMZ report of pneumonia and the enlarged heart that killed him and the question about whether the reader would carry through the metaphor and make the link between the dolphins he said were in his blood and what they would look like now.
October 7, 2021
Haunted and haunting. The real deal. Post transgressive lit?
April 18, 2022
Sad, dark, cold, and pretty.
Read
September 15, 2020Breathtaking agony, like this driving gay erotic dirge with stark clarity.
May 4, 2024
“Has Grindr killed psychic gay powers?”
A spiritual companion to Forever, by the same author Thomas Moore, this novel shows vignettes of a young gay man, dropping us into his life and we as the reader watch as he navigates his life, feeling lost. Alone follows the unnamed narrator and his boyfriend Daniel as their relationship disintegrates. While trying to cope with the end of the relationship, the narrator reflects on his childhood, contemplates the nature of loneliness, reflects on how the internet and hookup apps have changed modern courtship, and feels nostalgia for the days of public cruising. In Alone, the narrator is overburdened by his emotions and his sense of loneliness. Rather than seeking connection, he’s more trying to learn to cope with and love being alone. I found this very relatable, and a lot of the protagonist’s inner thoughts have been things that I have felt throughout my life. I think writers always leave a part of themselves in their stories, regardless of the content of the actual story, and I think I found myself comforted by how much I related to the protagonist and vulnerable parts that the author chose to weave throughout the story. This was comforting despite the sad and dark content. There’s a certain kind of loneliness that queer men experience that isn’t talked about, especially during their coming-of-age and their adolescence. The parts of the story where the unnamed protagonist looks to dead queer men and boys and finds himself empathizing with them and their stories to be very real and relatable. I think this is something that all queer men go through growing up, desperately trying to look to other people who have lived like them and see where they ended up, a desperate attempt at understanding and hope for something better. The passages in this novel about loving to be alone without loneliness sung to me. I loved how certain passages spoke about monogamy and heteronormative relationships, and how queer people don’t naturally see themselves in these kind of dynamics because they never got the opportunity to when they were young, they were never made to feel like they could, so when they could, they didn’t. The passage about finding intimacy in strangers was something that connected with me deeply and is something that I’ve found to be true throughout my life. I’ve never envied or sought out a normal relationship simply because it never appealed to me, I was always comforted by the fleeting nights I’d spend with strangers travelling, and it was almost more romantic and clandestine if I never spoke or heard from them ever again, but just knowing that we connected intimately, crossed paths against all odds of us never meeting, and knowing they’re out there somewhere, adrift in life much like me. I don’t think heteronormative people can understand that feeling unless they’ve been outsiders their whole lives. I loved how the protagonist likens the unspoken signals for sex to mind reading and being psychic. I loved that he spoke about how his time reading people while cruising let him read people in the heteronormative world, and how it helped him figure people out and know what they want before even they did. I related to him when he said that the time of hookup apps threw a wrench in all of this for him, since it was a new language and a new type of skill not taught to him. This is so real for queer men of different generations, so often do you realize the chasms between experiences when talking to queer men from different generations. It can seem isolating, even among the isolated. I liked how the protagonist likened cruising for sex with strangers to be more truthful and primal than the performative dance of heteronormative dating, how the sex he has with a stranger in a park bathroom is more honest than the performance of marriage, and I found that to be so impactful and true. I loved how this book deconstructs monogamy and heteronormativity, and I loved the rumination on what it means to be alone, and being alone as a choice. The conversation towards the end about suicide is going to be controversial to a lot of readers, but I found it comforting and true in a way that doesn’t idealize it or romanticize it. There’s something beautiful in the idea of living and dying alone, but I think a lot of people (because of how they grew up) won’t understand that. But I do, and so does Thomas Moore. And I think that that’s beautiful and ineffable.
“Strangers have given me the most romantic and exciting nights of my life. For brief moments I have felt like I have been able to know them as well as I know myself - I'm able to put that much into the interactions. On the right night, I've been able to lose myself fully and to know a person in as deep a way as is possible. Once the night has been over, I haven't forced myself to try to keep them - to try and own them - to ask them to be in a relationship with me - I can feel strong enough to carry on without them but to have been lucky to have met them for however long and to have shared a kind of intimacy that I just don't think can exist between the hetero-normative couple, ten years into their relationship, trying to compromise all of the time.”
A spiritual companion to Forever, by the same author Thomas Moore, this novel shows vignettes of a young gay man, dropping us into his life and we as the reader watch as he navigates his life, feeling lost. Alone follows the unnamed narrator and his boyfriend Daniel as their relationship disintegrates. While trying to cope with the end of the relationship, the narrator reflects on his childhood, contemplates the nature of loneliness, reflects on how the internet and hookup apps have changed modern courtship, and feels nostalgia for the days of public cruising. In Alone, the narrator is overburdened by his emotions and his sense of loneliness. Rather than seeking connection, he’s more trying to learn to cope with and love being alone. I found this very relatable, and a lot of the protagonist’s inner thoughts have been things that I have felt throughout my life. I think writers always leave a part of themselves in their stories, regardless of the content of the actual story, and I think I found myself comforted by how much I related to the protagonist and vulnerable parts that the author chose to weave throughout the story. This was comforting despite the sad and dark content. There’s a certain kind of loneliness that queer men experience that isn’t talked about, especially during their coming-of-age and their adolescence. The parts of the story where the unnamed protagonist looks to dead queer men and boys and finds himself empathizing with them and their stories to be very real and relatable. I think this is something that all queer men go through growing up, desperately trying to look to other people who have lived like them and see where they ended up, a desperate attempt at understanding and hope for something better. The passages in this novel about loving to be alone without loneliness sung to me. I loved how certain passages spoke about monogamy and heteronormative relationships, and how queer people don’t naturally see themselves in these kind of dynamics because they never got the opportunity to when they were young, they were never made to feel like they could, so when they could, they didn’t. The passage about finding intimacy in strangers was something that connected with me deeply and is something that I’ve found to be true throughout my life. I’ve never envied or sought out a normal relationship simply because it never appealed to me, I was always comforted by the fleeting nights I’d spend with strangers travelling, and it was almost more romantic and clandestine if I never spoke or heard from them ever again, but just knowing that we connected intimately, crossed paths against all odds of us never meeting, and knowing they’re out there somewhere, adrift in life much like me. I don’t think heteronormative people can understand that feeling unless they’ve been outsiders their whole lives. I loved how the protagonist likens the unspoken signals for sex to mind reading and being psychic. I loved that he spoke about how his time reading people while cruising let him read people in the heteronormative world, and how it helped him figure people out and know what they want before even they did. I related to him when he said that the time of hookup apps threw a wrench in all of this for him, since it was a new language and a new type of skill not taught to him. This is so real for queer men of different generations, so often do you realize the chasms between experiences when talking to queer men from different generations. It can seem isolating, even among the isolated. I liked how the protagonist likened cruising for sex with strangers to be more truthful and primal than the performative dance of heteronormative dating, how the sex he has with a stranger in a park bathroom is more honest than the performance of marriage, and I found that to be so impactful and true. I loved how this book deconstructs monogamy and heteronormativity, and I loved the rumination on what it means to be alone, and being alone as a choice. The conversation towards the end about suicide is going to be controversial to a lot of readers, but I found it comforting and true in a way that doesn’t idealize it or romanticize it. There’s something beautiful in the idea of living and dying alone, but I think a lot of people (because of how they grew up) won’t understand that. But I do, and so does Thomas Moore. And I think that that’s beautiful and ineffable.
“Strangers have given me the most romantic and exciting nights of my life. For brief moments I have felt like I have been able to know them as well as I know myself - I'm able to put that much into the interactions. On the right night, I've been able to lose myself fully and to know a person in as deep a way as is possible. Once the night has been over, I haven't forced myself to try to keep them - to try and own them - to ask them to be in a relationship with me - I can feel strong enough to carry on without them but to have been lucky to have met them for however long and to have shared a kind of intimacy that I just don't think can exist between the hetero-normative couple, ten years into their relationship, trying to compromise all of the time.”
March 4, 2022
Reads like the journal entry of a 16 year old trying too hard to impress in that “oooh, I’m a profoundly deep and wronged person trying to make art out of my pain” bullshitty kind of way.
Read
June 20, 2022no thank you
July 10, 2023
i read this before college i loved it i forget what happens though haha
October 5, 2023
4.5 to be sure, dark and insightful
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