This is kind of a schizophrenic book. I tried to enjoy it for the romance between two ex-lovers, a filmmaker and a rock musician, who are thrown together and, over the course of one eventful night in L.A., must come to terms with their lingering feelings for one another. Even though, for me, the fate of this love affair was the most engaging aspect of the book, it's obvious that the late author, James Robert Baker, had another agenda in mind. This very black comedy/satire is primarily concerned with communicating the level of rage felt by the gay community against the right wing conservative powers-that-be during the height of the AIDS crisis in the early nineties. Set against, and certainly finding parallels in, post-riot Los Angeles, the story follows the eponymous ex-lovers as they traverse the city looking for one of Pete's fellow AA members who has fallen off the wagon...hard.

Along the way they meet a recovering alcoholic movie star, a reactionary Republican congressman, a pair of feuding, mismatched lesbian lovers, an AIDS sufferer newly converted to Christianity and ready to renounce his "sinful" ways and, most significantly, a band of artists-cum-terrorists plotting to bomb the La Jolla church attended by a popular Republican ex-President.

I very much enjoyed this book on one level because, as with all my favourite LGBT books, the two leads aren't mincing stereotypes. Both are attractive, complicated, unique individuals. Plus, as a rock music and film lover, the glimpses into their respective careers was definitely cool. And, with the exception of a few lengthy, didactic speeches, the copious dialogue is convincingly written.

On the downside, I found most of the secondary and minor characters (although not necessarily poorly drawn or wooden) were not fully realized individuals, but merely props used to justify the author's anger against particular societal ills. I was also majorly turned off by the violence. Although most of the violence doesn't actually happen on the page, it's still omnipresent - in the bitter, angry lyrics of Pete's songs, in the deliberately offensive, provocative artwork of the radical queer terrorists (who also orchestrate a wholesale massacre on a conference of conservative bigwigs that takes place sometime shortly after the book's denouement) and in the elaborate gore-filled revenge fantasies shared by the two leads as they drive through bombed out L.A. While I certainly agree with the book's politics, most of this stuff, played for laughs, struck me as nothing more than impotent bombast.

My recommendation - read TIM AND PETE for the love story. If you're anything like me, you can stop in the middle of Chapter Ten and have your happy ending without the huge side order of implied and impending violence. ( )

one of the great early "rage-period" AIDS books, brilliant in its fierce anti-religiousity and oppositon to every other institution of American life these guys perceived as killing them--and a sweet love story at that, don't slap me folks, part of you just wishes to see them settle down, be happy, and have lots of hot, angry/tender sex. ( )