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PARADISE PRESS
fine writing by lesbians and gay men |
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IN PRINT The Butterfly's Wing Martin Foreman Cocksuckery Ian Stewart First and Fiftieth and other stories Martin Foreman Goodmans Hotel Alan Keslian A Little Chat and other stories Michael Harth Merle Elsa Wallace Nailing Frank Paul Mann A New Man in Old Steine Graham Robertson The Physent and other stories Michael Harth The Picnic and other stories Michael Harth The Queer Commando Paul Mann Queer Haunts an anthology of ghost stories Rid England of This Plague Rex Batten The Seaman's Mission Paul Mann A Sense of Loss and other stories Martin Foreman A Short History of Lord Hyaena Elsa Wallace Slivers of Silver poems by gay men and women Weekend Martin Foreman FORTHCOMING Parable With Foreskin And Redheads Ian Stewart 
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a collection of stories Paul Mann "great fun" The Seafarer "The short stories crackle with bitchy, salty wit. ... It's by turns funny, sexy, moving and unexpected." Gay Times "a riot of acerbic wit and authentic characterisation" oneinseven magazine "I love [Breakfast Cabaret] ... lively ... really quite something. ... [The Entertainments Officer] made me laugh a lot - you have the wonderful literary virtue of being able to express disgust amusingly." Christopher Isherwood More reviews bottom right 'The Hotel Splendide where en suite means a hole in the floor with two hundred flies, man. The tap runs brown. The cockroaches run friendly, size of your fist.' Paul Mann worked as a purser in cargo ships, passenger ships, tankers and Landing Ships Logistic. His time with the P & O Group led to this collection of short stories with a flavour of the sea only. Humour and variety are the collection's hallmark. The Entertainments Officer 'stars' a camp and outrageous Passengers' Entertainments Officer who doesn't like passengers one little bit. In contrast is a meatier tale The Man-eater set in East Africa. A killer lion is at large but more deadly than the lion is Cordelia who is soured by intellectual isolation and has contempt for her homosexual son and those Europeans she has to live, or rather exist, with. The tedium of a sea voyage in Breakfast Cabaret is relieved by the ship's surgeon who goads the conventional ship's captain until something gives. In The Survivor a disciplinarian captain goes out on a limb for a junior engineer officer who is responsible for wrecking his ship in the back of beyond. Bobby is a moving story of two school friends meeting by chance in Cochin. In The Marine's Tale, Pete Carter, from Mann's first book The Queer Commando, is accepted because he is a nice guy. Dishy tough humourless Marine Pebbles is not accepted. Pebbles befriends Pete who fails to see beyond the dark good looks and is scared of the sometimes bullying Pebbles. A tale with an ending worthy of Heller. |
  Paul Mann now lives in Greater Manchester with a German Shepherd. He is a member of 42 Commando Association because despite being an anti establishment, anti royalist, queer vegetarian pacifist who loathes blind discipline, pomp and compulsory sport, he served by mistake in the Third Commando Brigade and enjoyed almost all of his time there. More reviews "The Seaman's Mission is written by a self-proclaimed, anti-establishment, anti-royalist, queer vegetarian pacifist who loathes blind discipline, pomp and compulsory sport, but served by mistake in the Third Commando Brigade and also spent years at sea with the P & O Line. "Mann's time at sea didn't go to waste. The short stories crackle with bitchy, salty wit. "The Entertainments Officer" features a camp passengers' entertainments officer who can't stand passengers, and in "Breakfast Cabaret", the tedium of a sea voyage is overcome by the outrageous goading of the Captain by the ship's doctor. It's by turns funny, sexy, moving and unexpected." Gay Times "If you're looking for something completely different to read, Big Boy, this may be it. But you've been warned, Sailor." Nautical Magazine Also available by Paul Mann from Paradise Press: Nailing Frank The Queer Commando 
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