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Title: It hurts to say it
Review: I first became aware of Lev Raphael when he was an essayist, writing about his agonies over being a gay Jew. It pains me to say that he has not made a successful transition to novelist. The themes of his essays (e.g. sexual ambiguities and jealous (?) bashing of women) are not only carried over in Burning Down the House, but explored in the same preaching style. I understand that every novelist injects certain biographical elements, but it shouldn't be done at the expense of weaving a good tale. Raphael should take up his causes in essays and spare us the polemics in his novels. Burning Down the House had no substance as a novel. The plot was without suspense because there was nothing at risk (my motto: show me the corpse). And if Raphael thought that this void could be filled by the reader's fretting over whether Nick Hoffman would "convert" and bed down with a tough-as-nails female, he miscalulated in my regard.
