Chitinan Chandee Chandee থেকে Centro Familiar la Soledad, Gto., Mexico
This book won a Pulitzer 50 years ago and was made into a film by Otto Preminger. I'd seen the movie years ago; one of its notable aspects was a gay subplot, which entailed a scene that was the first time a wide audience had seen an amusingly lurid depiction of a gay bar. I'd always meant to go back and read the (long out of print) book, so I finally slogged through a library copy. It's written in a stilted, antique prose style that's akin to a verbal equivalent of the mid-20th century newscasting, and it doesn't wear too well. It's also far too long for what is, essentially, a well-crafted political soap opera. What were the Pulitzer people thinking, I wonder? The gay bar scene isn't in the book (it's one of those plot device adaptations used to speed and heat up plot), but I did learn that the crucial gay plot line was actually based on a real event: US Senator Lester Hunt was blackmailed by Republicans in the mid-1950s after his son was arrested on a "morals charge"!