The Low Road

by James Lear

Book Review by Jean Roberta

"You'll take the high road, and I'll take the low road,
And I'll be in Scotland before ye.
But me and my true love will never meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond."
- from "Loch Lomond," Scottish folk song (see below)¹

James Lear is a sly dog who subverts the kind of novels that are widely thought of as "classics" by larding their plots with man-on-man sex. The results are hilarious, arousing and surprisingly faithful to the originals.

The title The Low Road, like his previous titles, The Back Passage and The Secret Tunnel (wink, wink) is a barely-disguised reference to anal sex. Each title works on several different levels, however. The Low Road also refers to different routes taken by different characters, and to necessary secrecy.

The most obvious model for James Lear's novel about Scotland after the defeat of the Jacobites (Catholic supporters of Prince Charles Stuart's claim to the throne of Scotland) at Culloden in 1746 is Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, a novel published in the 1880s but set in the mid-1700s and largely read (when it first appeared) as an adventure story for boys. The central character in Kidnapped is a young man whose parents are dead, and whose wicked uncle arranges for him to be taken to sea against his will. In the course of his adventures, the young man grows up and eventually gains his rightful inheritance.

The Low Road picks up the picaresque (adventure-story) and coming-of-age themes and intertwines them with the romance of "coming out" into a society in which "sodomy" is a hanging offense but in which most men enjoy sex with other men. Nineteen-year-old Charles Edward Gordon, the central character, lives with his grieving mother in the family mansion after his father, a brave Jacobite leader, has been murdered. Young Charlie, a physically active but isolated lad, develops a "friendship" with a servant:

"My sole contact with my own sex is Alexander, our groom, the only man I know who knew my father. Alexander kept the horses at Gordon Hall after Culloden, and remained in the family service ever since.”

Before long, Charlie engages Alexander in playful wrestling which results in a messy fall. Alexander tends to Charlie as he does to the horses, one thing leads to another, and Charles discovers the joy of a man's touch. Charles even persuades his mother to let Alexander spend nights in Charles’ bedchamber in the great house. For awhile, the lovers live together in bliss, but the country is still in turmoil, spies and English soldiers are everywhere, and danger lurks.

One day, Alexander disappears and a mysterious French "priest" named Benoit arrives to tutor the lad in Greek and Latin. Charles resents him, but grudgingly admires him.

By spying on the strange man in the house (after being spied on himself), Charles sees the “priest” masturbating. Charles confronts Benoit about his hypocrisy and misunderstands Benoit's request that Charles call him "Father." (Charles suspects Benoit of being an opportunist who intends to marry Charles' mother and take over Gordon Hall.) Before Benoit can explain his real mission, English soldiers arrive to search the house for "traitors" to the English crown. Benoit offers no resistance, and the soldiers take him away, leaving Charles and his mother. Charles realizes that he must take action.

Charles sets forth to outwit the "redcoats" of the garrison and rescue Benoit. Along the way, he stops at an inn where he encounters a group of men:

"a rough and ready group, but, I thought, honest-looking Scotsmen each and every one of them. When I entered the inn, they had been joining in a chorus of Loch Lomond -- a crypto-Jacobite hymn, as every young Scot knew well. My immediate fears that these were the dreaded redcoats were swiftly allayed. I felt, for the time being, safe."

Charles feels so safe that he lets the men goad him into drinking excessively, and he takes part in a contest to see whose cock is the biggest:

"Jamie, the middle brother, took our two hard cocks in his hand and held them side by side, pressed together. The heat from Davie's weapon was helping me to get even bigger.”

However, one man in the group has a bigger cock than Charles, who is told that "winner takes all." This means that Charles must use his mouth on Johnnie, the winner, and then accept a punishing (yet exhilarating) fuck. Charles loses consciousness and wakes up on board a ship, where he is destined to be the plaything of the crew.

The captain is an English gentleman in his own way. He rescues Charles from the attention of uncouth sailors (not that Charles really minds it), and decides that he wants to keep Charles for himself. Although he has been commissioned to bring Charles, the Jacobite "traitor," to a feared English general for "questioning" (torture), Captain Moore makes Charles "disappear" as a target of the English by sending word to the general that Charles has been killed. But Charles doesn't want to be the captain's concubine for life. He has more heroic things to do.

Of course, Charles eventually meets up with the feared General Wade while impersonating a messenger so that he can discover the whereabouts of Benoit. In one adventure after another, Charles uses his healthy young cock, his eager mouth and his muscular ass in the service of Scotland.

Meanwhile, Benoit uses any means at his disposal to write letters to Charles, addressed to him at Gordon Hall and smuggled out by corrupt guards. Benoit has little hope that Charles will ever receive the letters, but writing them helps keep Benoit sane in desperate circumstances.

The letters are interspersed with Charles' adventures, so the reader can follow the parallel narratives as the suspense builds. Will Charles and Benoit both survive long enough to be reunited? And if so, what kind of relationship will they have after each man has a variety of sexual learning experiences?

The plot proceeds at a gallop despite the frequent sex scenes involving orgies, voyeurism/exhibitionism, spankings, cross-dressing and a memorable banquet in which Charles is the piece de resistance. Charles survives numerous close calls long enough to mature from a sheltered boy to a more sensible man, and all complications are resolved—at least for the major characters, if not for the doomed Prince for whom Charles was named.

For those who love historical fiction and m/m erotic romance, this novel is a treat. The period flavor resembles that of novels that were actually written in the mid-1700s, and the episodic plot lends itself to being read in installments. James Lear has such a shamelessly homoerotic take on history and literature that a reader wonders which "classic" he will take on next. 
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¹  From the Wikipedia entry on “Loch Lomond:”
“There are many theories about the meaning of the song. One interpretation is that it is attributed to a Jacobite Highlander who was captured after the 1745 rising. The English played games with the Jacobites, and said that one of them could live and one would die. This is sung by the one who was sentenced to die, the low road referred to being the passage to the underworld.

Jean Roberta
October 2009

The Low Road by James Lear
(Cleis Press, 2009; ISBN 1573443646)
Available at: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

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© 2009 Jean Roberta. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written

About the Author: Jean Roberta is the thin-disguise pen name of a writer who teaches mandatory first-year English classes in a Canadian prairie university and who writes fiction (erotic and otherwise), research-based articles, opinion pieces and reviews. She joined ERWA in December 1998, and has never looked back. Several of her stories can be found in the "Treasure Chest" gallery. Over sixty of her erotic stories have been published in print anthologies, and Eternal Press has released her single-author e-collection of erotic stories in various genres and flavors, Obsession (2008).
Jean is a staff reviewer for the monthly reviews site, Erotica Revealed (edited by D.L. King). She blogs on Livejournal as "Lizardlez" and at www.goodsturdyjeans.blogspot.com. Her website (www.JeanRoberta.com) is a work in progress.
Read Jean's full bio at Erotica Readers & Writers Association.

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