Download PDF Teardrops on My Drum Gay Men Press Collection Jack Robinson 9780854492619 Books
Download As PDF : Teardrops on My Drum Gay Men Press Collection Jack Robinson 9780854492619 Books
Book by Robinson, Jack
Download PDF Teardrops on My Drum Gay Men Press Collection Jack Robinson 9780854492619 Books
"I have only just read this gay 'classic' as it is oft referred and I checked out what it says on Wikipedia and was a bit alarmed. Firstly the book is autobiographical and tells the story of Jackie growing up in a Dickensian Liverpool of the 1920's and between the wars. He has abusive and neglectful parents and learns to survive on his own wits.
This being forced to fend for one's self makes you grow up quicker and Jackie is no exception and that includes his adolescent sexual awakenings and realisations.
I also love social history and one of the many strengths of this book is the sheer amount of detail of the Liverpool he grows up in a view that has all but been forgotten. He talks of the filth and poverty and the songs, the smells the food (or lack of it) the simple joy of getting a penny's worth of chips. How to steal from the horse drawn drays and delivery lorries and even working in a kosher butchers (for one day only as unusually for such a promiscuous young lad he could not bring himself to 'choke a chicken').
He then has a sexual encounter with an older man in a cinema, They start a relationship but due to his Ma pawning the clothes (he has only one set of clothes and no shoes as was the norm at the time)that the man has bought for him. After he realises the potential of his libido he wants a 'real man', he is having regular gay sex with his friend 'Eggy' but he meets his man friend again as he is a police officer. They then begin a mutual sexual relationship and the copper Eddie takes proper care of him. Wikipedia states that this is an abusive relationship and that Eddie is a paedophile. I had initially felt this to be not the case however, I have since read 'The Tricky Part' The Tricky Part: A boy's story of sexual trespass, a man's journey to forgivenessand this brilliantly told story really makes it clear that this was an abusive relationship. Jackie seems to have grown from it and not let it affect him in later life, however this does not distract from the fact that he was abused.
He actually only has one non consensual bumming as he calls it and is quite clear that he did not enjoy it, so he clearly knows what he does and does not want.
I found this book to have the qualities of a cute puppy in that it was 'unputdownable'. If you do not like graphic descriptions of male copulation and foreplay then give this a miss, and whilst this is not Shakespeare, I found Jack Robinsons writing style to be engaging, easily accessible and written with warmth and care. I intend to get his follow up 'Jackie and Jamie Go To War'."
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Tags : Teardrops on My Drum (Gay Men's Press Collection) [Jack Robinson] on . Book by Robinson, Jack,Jack Robinson,Teardrops on My Drum (Gay Men's Press Collection),Heretic Books,0854492615,General,Biography / Autobiography,Fiction,Fiction / General,Personal Memoirs,Sociology, Social Studies,Specific Groups - Male Gay Studies,Sociology
Teardrops on My Drum Gay Men Press Collection Jack Robinson 9780854492619 Books Reviews :
Teardrops on My Drum Gay Men Press Collection Jack Robinson 9780854492619 Books Reviews
- I thought the book would be a worthwhile read since it depicted the homoerotic scene of pre-WWII Liverpool. I was not disappointed. Jack Robinson, author and protagonist, brings us into the free and easy homoeroticism that is suggested by a great many observers of the period. There is a wonderful naturalness and innocence in Jackie's love affair with his school friend Eggy. They are just two natural boys doing what boys will do if not repressed or educated otherwise.
The picture we get of Jackie, however, is not the picture of a "gay" boy. It is a picture of a child who is cruelly neglected and emotionally starved by his parents. It is clear that his early sexual awakening is a compensating device for this deprivation. He says as much himself. In both his relationship with the policeman and with Chesty, his older army buddy, what really satisfies young Jackie is to be hugged, kissed and loved.
He comes to enjoy the sex, even those forms of sex that intrinsically repel him, such a fellatio, but one gets the sense that had he had all the love he craved from his mother and father, he would never have gone that far sexually, not at a young age, and maybe never.
It is certainly not my aim to argue that all forms of sexuality should be off limits to a young teenager, but Jackie is drawn into more and more intense sexual encounters, bordering on the obsessive and compulsive, such as anilingus, habitual anal sex with older boys and men, etc. Is that really the kind of activity that a twelve year old boy should engage in? Not in any normal or desirable world.
The book is not to be read as a glorification of precocious sexuality. It is rather a testament to the triumph of man over adversity. Out of a cruelly deprived childhood, plagued first by emotional deprivation, poverty, and malnutrition, and later by the surrender of all personal boundaries in the quest for love, out of this mix of dearth and excess, rises a man who is educated, successful, and sensitive. One is drawn to imagine that the real Jack Robinson had a more successful life than most of his more affluent contemporaries, despite AND because of his suffering. - I have only just read this gay 'classic' as it is oft referred and I checked out what it says on Wikipedia and was a bit alarmed. Firstly the book is autobiographical and tells the story of Jackie growing up in a Dickensian Liverpool of the 1920's and between the wars. He has abusive and neglectful parents and learns to survive on his own wits.
This being forced to fend for one's self makes you grow up quicker and Jackie is no exception and that includes his adolescent sexual awakenings and realisations.
I also love social history and one of the many strengths of this book is the sheer amount of detail of the Liverpool he grows up in a view that has all but been forgotten. He talks of the filth and poverty and the songs, the smells the food (or lack of it) the simple joy of getting a penny's worth of chips. How to steal from the horse drawn drays and delivery lorries and even working in a kosher butchers (for one day only as unusually for such a promiscuous young lad he could not bring himself to 'choke a chicken').
He then has a sexual encounter with an older man in a cinema, They start a relationship but due to his Ma pawning the clothes (he has only one set of clothes and no shoes as was the norm at the time)that the man has bought for him. After he realises the potential of his libido he wants a 'real man', he is having regular gay sex with his friend 'Eggy' but he meets his man friend again as he is a police officer. They then begin a mutual sexual relationship and the copper Eddie takes proper care of him. Wikipedia states that this is an abusive relationship and that Eddie is a paedophile. I had initially felt this to be not the case however, I have since read 'The Tricky Part' The Tricky Part A boy's story of sexual trespass, a man's journey to forgivenessand this brilliantly told story really makes it clear that this was an abusive relationship. Jackie seems to have grown from it and not let it affect him in later life, however this does not distract from the fact that he was abused.
He actually only has one non consensual bumming as he calls it and is quite clear that he did not enjoy it, so he clearly knows what he does and does not want.
I found this book to have the qualities of a cute puppy in that it was 'unputdownable'. If you do not like graphic descriptions of male copulation and foreplay then give this a miss, and whilst this is not Shakespeare, I found Jack Robinsons writing style to be engaging, easily accessible and written with warmth and care. I intend to get his follow up 'Jackie and Jamie Go To War'.
