a sand fortress

A Sand Fortress by John Coriolan (Gay Sunshine Press, 1984)

A bizarre and bloated novel about gay life in and around New York City in the 1960s and 70s. It focusses on the sexual lives of its two protagonists — Alex and Mike — in a way that suggests that they have not other life, spending all their time cruising and hooking up or talking about cruising and hooking up. Everyone in this book is obsesses with huge cocks (both Alex and Mike have big ones) and the number of blowjobs described, or remembered, or imagined, is bludgeoning.

Coriolan, a pseudonym for William Corington, attempts to add psychological depth to his characters but their obsession with sex and physicality prevents them from ever seeming human. An inexplicable and completely unnecessary final chapter, set ten years later in 1980 was added to the book when it was republished by Gay Sunshine Press in in 1984. (I read another John Coriolan novel — The Eros of a Smile? — sometime ago but of course remember nothing about it.)