“Doo-Lang Love”–great relaxation

Sosna, Chad, “Doo-Lang Love”. iUniverse, 2006

Great Relaxation

Amos Lassen

Rex Muncey, a 23 year old gay man, decides to movie to Chicago but is in the dark as to what life holds for him. He thought of himself as “white trash” and left his home in East St. Louis and figured he had a better chance somewhere else. He eventually landed a job at a record shop called “Wayne’s Wax and Hi-Fi Trax”. The store specialized in vinyl records, especially of girl groups from the 60’s which just happened to be his favorite music. The owner of the store, also a gay man liked Wayne but Rex had taken a liking to Rodney, his straight co-worker, who has a girlfriend. David, an executive with a record company from Los Angeles, came into the store and after Rex helps him with his selection also helps himself to a date with him that night David invites Rex to L.A. as his boss is pushing a new girl group (a drag queen homage to 60’s music) called, quite naturally, “The Girlettes|”. Rex becomes their advisor and manager and Rex who conducts a long distance romance with David, while lusting for Rodney, thinks as to how he can move the group to success. (By now probably think you have figured out where the plot is going.  Banish the thought. There is a lot more to it than I am going to tell you here).

The book captured my interest from the start and it is such a change for some of the gay themed “drek” we get. There is a little romance, but the book is not a romance, This is not a coming out story for change.  There are no strong morals or lessons to learn. It is just a light hearted novel meant to be read for pleasure. When we have so many novels written about bitchy drag queens, it is nice to see one that has none of that bitchiness in it.

I could not help but like Rex. Not only is he real but he is just a regular guy and I just wanted him to succeed at anything he tried. His innocence made him enduring. The musical aspect of the book is a new approach that we aren’t used to. The book also deals with bisexuality in a novel way. Most of us discount bisexuals as gay men hiding from themselves. Sosna gives a different picture of bisexuality and when we meet Rodney, we meet a true bisexual and both Rex and we learn that bisexuality does not mean excluding the other side of desire. As hard a time we have had accepting ourselves as gay men, bisexuals have an even harder time with both self and societal acceptance.

Love is a very special emotion and it is not always defined by sexuality. A good sexual partner does not mean that someone is a good lover.

There are kinds of surprises in the book and this is one of the things that make it a real page turner. The plot is concise and simplistic and written extremely well. To me, the main idea that Sosna was trying to give us s that dreams are meant to be followed and them put into action if possible. Also the book seems to say that when looking for love, a person can get very lonely.

Sosna obviously knows his geography and he conveys that through the pages of the book, Reading “Doo-LangLove” is like finding a new friend that you can sit back and be comfortable with. We never seem to have enough of those.