Robin Anderson Author Reviews

Red Snapper

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"I know you are dying to know how I brought caro Carlo's souvenir
back to England."
Grady Harp - Amazon - December 2014

Anyone who has read previous books by the inimitable Robin Anderson is in for a treat with RED SNAPPER.
Anderson has polished his recipe for entertainment to a fare-thee-well. He creates impossibly ludicrous
characters who happen to bounce off each other in the most unexpected way, fills his story with incidents
that can only fall into the 'naughty range', and yet his manner of writing is so sophisticated and a solid that
about one third of the way through his books the reader realizes the farce is meant as good-humored fun
and should not be taken too seriously or dissected or analyzed because the author is always just around
the corner (or on the next page) with a guffaw to top all previous ones.

As is always the case with Robin's books, his own hilarious plot summaries match the paltry descriptions other attempts for synopses: `The unkindest cut of all. James Augustine-Jones has classic blond English good looks and plenty of money. He oozes talent as London's leading interior designer and he oozes sex appeal. So does his long-time friend and lover, David Prior, of Prior Properties. But James has a problem. Years ago, in his teens, he gazed up at Michelangelo's statue of David in Florence - the one that has middle-aged matrons fainting on the floor - and realised that the statue had something that James didn't: a tassel, a veil, a Walnut Whip, a foreskin - call it what you will. James resents the 'cut', resents his parents, and resolves to bite back. A series of horrendous attacks by the 'Red Snapper' hits London's Earl's Court and other gay zones. Then a handsome policeman comes on the scene, and life for James gets very, very difficult... and very, very painful. Glamorous venues ranging from Chelsea to South America and Sri Lanka, plus exquisitely observed camp banter and chintzy behaviour, mark Robin Anderson's shockingly penetrating novel as a gay masterpiece. Behind the gloss and the glitz, however, there's a stern, even moralistic, message: don't do unto others what you don't want done to yourself... `

Sit back and get ready for another giggle trip and different look at a controversial surgery. Robin has it right.

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"'Drapes Make It Happen."
Amos Lassen

It has been said that a room without drapes is unfinished and I have heard almost the same when referring
to men—foreskin makes the man. Whatever you believe, some men just don’t feel well dressed without
drapes. One such person is James Augustine-Jones, the hero of Robin Anderson’s “Red Snapper”.
James is your classic Englishman—blonde, talented, rich and has that ever so cute British accent.
He also is loaded with sex appeal. He has a lover and best friend, David Prior and the two are very much
alike—walking sex. However…

James is missing something (his living room has no drapes). He realized he was minus a foreskin when as a teen he saw Michelangelo’s David in Florence (of course he did not know that Michelangelo had erred with that statue. David was King of the Jews and by Jewish law all Jewish men part with their drapes eight days after birth—but who I am to argue with one of the greatest artists of all time; if he wanted his David to have drapes, so be it. After all, his Moses has horns). James felt deprived and he hated his parents for having him cut. At just about the same time, a series of attacks began in the gay areas of London and things continued to get worse until a very handsome policeman enters the fray and James finds his life becoming more and more difficult especially when he decided that if he didn’t have drapes, neither should anyone else.

Reading “Red Snapper” is similar to going on a roller coaster ride but beginning in a bathroom stall where the body of a young man is found mutilated and hitting curves and the highs and the lows all over the world.

If you love gore, this is a book for you and if you love a black comedy this is also for you. Anderson is a terrific writer and we can only hope that all of his books will be available in the States. I found “Red Snapper” to be a total escape for me and somewhat of a guilty pleasure—I did not stop reading even though I have a stack of reviews to write and not enough time to do it. But the book pulled me and kept me going from page one.

A personal note–having been raised Jewish and then moving to Israel, U rarely saw a man who was draped. But now that I am in Arkansas where we have many rural farm boys, there are more drapes than an interior decorator’s studio. I understand all to well what James felt and Shakespeare called “the unkindest cut of all”.

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"'An absolute feast of unsavoury delights."
Peter Burton

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