Fiction/Gay literature 6x8 in, 168 pp January 1996 Cloth 1-885030-02-9 $21.00 list September 1997 Paperback 1-885030-03-7 $12.95 list The paperback edition will be back in stock for the fall 2000 semester. Teachers, order your free exam copy today! Rolling the R's A novel by R. Zamora Linmark Now in paperback!! Book Description . About the Author . Excerpt . Reviews . Events . Buy Books Now Illuminated by pop fantasies, Donna Summer disco tracks, and teen passion, the fiercely earnest characters in Rolling the R's come to life against a background of burning dreams and neglect in a small 1970s Hawaiian community. In this daring first novel, tour-de-force experiments in narrative structure, pidgin, and perspective roll every "are", throwing new light on gay identity and the trauma of assimilation. Rolling the R's goes beyond "coming of age" and "coming out" to address the realities of cultural confusion, prejudice, and spiraling levels of desire in humorous yet haunting portrayals that are, as Matthew Stadler writes, "stylish, shameless, and beautiful." Praise for Rolling the R's: "[A] style that combines the comic pitch of a drag queen with crazed, daredevil experimental techniques unseen since the '60s heyday of Terry Southern and Hunter Thompson-all in a dense and startlingly beautiful pidgin dialect. Linmark nails the excitement and terror of being young with a rare and moving accuracy."--Dennis Cooper, Spin Magazine "Rolling the R's is a downright funky, hothouse treat. With an ear for the poetry and music of pidgin language, Linmark's poignant stories explore taboo sexuality and ethnic identity with refreshing candor and a sly wit."--Jessica Hagedorn "A daring and delicate novelcreated out of the necessities of queer self-formation in an atmosphere of violence and dispossession."--Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick "Rolling the R's is a headfirst immersion into the hodgepodge world of a Hawaiian town's teens. The prose is delirious, dense, and florid. The kids bloom in rapid-fire stories, blossoming like flowers in hothouse air. Their talk is dizzying, full of sex, television, and cheap, glamorous dreams. It's Our Town in the American 1970s."--Matthew Stadler "Linmark has done more than simply use the argot of equatorial poverty as a sexy, colorful idiom. In its structure, tone, and depths, Rolling the R's is true to the furious and witty rhythms of a vernacular culture of resistance."--Village Voice Literary Supplement "R. Zamora Linmark serves up an eccentric and enchanting blend of disco memories, Tiger Beat crushes, and pidgin English in Rolling the R's."--Out Magazine