Gay Pulp Archives - SpookyBooky

There’s a lot of ball juggling in this book, if you catch my drift. The “plot” consists almost entirely of bedroom scenes. There are, however, fleeting moments of macabre clown imagery to jazz up the D-grade erotica.

The opening image is red, green and blue strobes from car headlights passing the stained-glass window of a Victorian mansion. Mark, a clown accountant, has set up a compound in the mansion for his wildly successful troupe, Bring in the Clowns. Their financial success proves there’s a special synergy among the clowns. As we soon discover, it likely has to do with their limitless dedication to customer service. The juxtaposition of jolly clowns living in a creaky old mansion is really quite sublime.

It doesn’t get any more 1969 than Adonis. This novel is as trippy as an extended foot and more surreal than Salvador Dali’s wet dreams. Though billed as “adult only” gay entertainment, much of the sex oozes with a slime of horror and supernatural mystery. You don’t know whether to be repulsed, turned on or terrified. Perhaps it’s the combination of all three which make it so unique.

Back in the day Adonis was popular enough to warrant two sequels. Today it’s an extremely rare find that might cost three figures for a tattered used copy.

California Scene, one of the more literary-minded gay presses, reviewed the novel in their May 1971 issue. They described it as “quite an exciting detective story” and praised Lambert’s “great skill in handling” a “number of good ideas.” In the same breath, however, there was concern that the “extremely involved” plot was peopled with “too many characters” and consequently difficult to follow.

Tag: Gay Pulp

Ed Kroch – Bring in the Clowns (1990)

William J. Lambert, III – Adonis Trilogy (1969-1970)