Synopses & Reviews
In
Briefly Told Lives, C. Bard Cole presents a wild panorama that sweeps from the urban gay ghetto to working class suburbia to the counter culture of punks and sex workers, a shockingly original view of lives lived on the edge of both straight society and the gay 'mainstream'. A broad tapestry in which conventional dividing lines begin to loose their fixed meaning, these characters spin their own master narratives, revealing lives rich in meaning and bought dearly through pain and compromise.
Intense and rewarding, Cole's debut collection exposes the complexities and contradictions of personal identity in a world devoid of grand truths and shared values. Briefly Told Lives is brash and insightful, bringing a very different, hidden world into the literary limelight.
Review
"Bard Cole's provocative and entertaining prose makes BRIEFLY TOLD LIVES an exhilarating collection of character studies ... gritty and genuine." (Katharine Weber, author of The Music Lesson)
Review
"the pace is fast, the action plentiful...a must read." (Booklist)
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Review
"An exciting debuts by a young author whose eye for squalor and for tenderness are equally authentic." (Poppy Z. Brite, author of Exquisite Corpse)
Review
"A clear-eyed chronicler of ambiguous desire, Cole charts the course of badly lived lives with great economy and wit." (Paul Russell, author of the award-winning novel The Coming Storm)
About the Author
C. Bard Cole is one of the leading literary figures to emerge from the queer punk movement on the 1990s. His fiction and cartoons have appeared in
Holy Titclamps, Riotboy, Dirty, Boy Trouble, and
queer zines, as well as in self-published chapbooks liked
Tattoed Love Boys and
Fag Sex in High School. His stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, including
Men on Men 7 and
Flesh and the Word 4. Born in Baltimore County, Maryland, he attended Sarah Lawrence College and Parsons School of Design. He lives in the East Village in New York City.