South Beach
The Novel
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
“Decadence has never seemed so sweet and innocent as it does in Brian Antoni’s lost world of deco and disco in pre-millennial Miami.” —Jay McInerney
This second novel by the acclaimed author of Paradise Overdose, is a “candy-colored and warmhearted . . . story of one man’s moral and sexual flowering” (The New York Times Book Review).
At the ripe old age of twenty-nine, globe-trotting, trust fund-endowed Gabriel Tucker is horrified to learn that all that’s left of his inheritance is a crumbling Miami Beach apartment building named the Venus De Milo Arms. Alone, penniless, and lacking any sort of useful skills, he heads to Miami to reconstruct his life.
His new neighbors are an unlikely mix of tenants: an elderly Holocaust survivor, a lip-synching drag queen, a cynical two-bit gossip columnist, and a rebellious young performance artist who Gabriel starts to fall for.
Quickly he is thrust into the outrageous world of South Beach, where temptations abound and quick fortunes, mountains of drugs, nonstop sex, and beautiful women (and men) for sale (or rent) are the order of the day. He becomes a ringside witness to the excesses and intrigues of Italian fashion empires, Cuban refugee supermodels, rapacious German developers, old-fashioned crooked politicians, and a cast of colorful characters that would make Caligula blush.
South Beach’s debauched and seductive glow makes for an unlikely place to start over. But it is here, among the faded art deco buildings and eclectic residents, that Gabriel will find a home—and a love—that he never expected.
“[Antoni] mischievously and triumphantly combines explicit sexual encounters with keen, hilarious social commentary and genuine compassion to create a love letter to a crazy place and a sweet tale of friendship, succor, and love.” —Booklist
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Gabriel Tucker's gargantuan trust fund has allowed him to spend his life traveling and partying, so he's none too pleased to receive a letter informing him that his uncle has blown all the money in the trust, and the only thing Gabriel has left is a crumbling hotel on South Beach. Gabriel finds the Venus De Milo Arms inhabited by a lip-synching tranny, an AIDS-afflicted gossip columnist, an elderly woman obsessed with her wardrobe and a performance artist named Marina, whom Gabriel promptly falls in love with. Their lives intertwine along with those of a Cuban refugee-cum-supermodel and a fashion designer obsessed with making South Beach's gaudy dilapidation the new chic. As Marina struggles with the past that keeps her from returning Gabriel's affection and the Venus de Milo Arms is threatened with becoming the next pile of rubble on the road to progress, Gabriel starts to realize that the old hotel may be the only place in the world that he can call home. Antoni delights in describing in pornographic detail the absurdities of South Beach (drugs, sex, freakish locals), but he never gets beneath South Beach's chipped veneer. The light treatment has its moments, but it isn't quite satisfying.