I Am Not Raymond Wallace

Product Information

Raymond is assigned to Doty, a journalist who has piece planned on the ‘overt homosexuality’ which apparently has New York in its grip. Kenyon’s novel explores themes of sexual identity and intolerance with a tender compassion through two very different characters.

As my self a gay boy growing up in the early 60's and knowing it at the age of 6, I could relate to SO MUCH of what was going on in this book made this THE story that i will NEVER ever forget, nor will I forget Raymond Wallace. But then he does not have the courage to take all the risks he would need to take, to live out his romance. The romance is pretty much doomed from the beginning, given that in 1963 homosexuality is still the love that dare not say its name. Although I needed to take a break during the Paris visit, and I wiped tears from my eyes more than once, it was a beautiful story crafted artfully.Jetlagged and excited, Raymond makes his way to the newspaper’s office wearing one of his late father’s suits.

Manhattan, 1963: weeks before the assassination of President Kennedy, fresh-faced Raymond Wallace lands in the New York Times newsroom on a three-month bursary from Cambridge University. There are some lovely major and minor characters - I particularly liked Dolores of the major characters and of the minor characters, Joshua (thrilled to be immortalised) and Sonia (70 but still sure of her sex appeal). I Am not Raymond Wallace is a multi-stranded story of queer redemption spanning multiple generations, told with precision-tooled prose, sharply-imagined settings and compassionately-observed characterisation.I Am not Raymond Wallace is a multi-stranded story of queer redemption spanning multiple generations, told with precision-tooled prose, sharply-imagined settings and compassionately-observed characterisation. Surprisingly graphic in a few places, the story is lovely and warm, and you can fall in love with the protagonist of the title easily. The decision he makes will ricochet destructively through lives and decades until―in another time, another city; in Paris, 2003―Raymond’s son Joe finally meets Joey. He’s told to go undercover, tasked with providing Doty with salacious details for the piece, something which both unsettles and excites him as he wrestles with a sexuality which has been kept firmly buttoned up. The rest of his life will be spent yearning for the love he found in New York, later writing about the pain of loss and repression.

A "historical" novel that starts in 1963 with some looks back and an epilogue that is set in modern times. On an undercover assignment, a secret world is revealed to Raymond: a world in which he need no longer pretend to be something or someone he cannot be; a world in which he meets Joey. The Raymond's controlling mother arrives to spend a couple of days with him at the end of his internship and accompany him home.The story is highly evocative of Manhattan in 1963 at the start and written in a traditional novel style. PLEASE NOTE: From 1st of July 2021, shipments from the UK to EU countries will be subject to Value Added Tax (VAT) charges.

When Raymond takes this 'job' and is told that he needs more 'appropriate for the times' clothing to fit in to the group that he is going to be doing undercover writing for; he has no idea that he is going to fall in love whole heartedly for the first time in his life with the young man at the clothier. The poignancy of Raymond’s story is neatly balanced by Joey’s and by Joe, able to live his life openly gay in contrast to his father. He’s told to wait for Dolores, the editor’s secretary, who sizes him up before introducing him to Bukowski, her boss. He soon discovers his elusive boss, Bukowski, is being covertly blackmailed by an estranged wife, and that he himself is to assist the straight-laced Doty on an article about the ‘explosion of overt homosexuality’ in the city. It's unclear to me what purpose this novel serves, other than to reinforce an outdated narrative that featured privileged protagonists who had the luxury of a closet.It is against this recontextualization that Sam Kenyon has written his debut novel, I am not Raymond Wallace, a story about closeted cis men set largely in 1963. being covertly blackmailed by an estranged wife, and that he himself is to assist the straight-laced Doty on an article about the ‘explosion of overt homosexuality’ in the city. It tells important history of what it was like to be homosexual in the 1950s and 1960s - fear of losing job, being blackmailed, thought to be sick, etc, etc.