A version of the following review (some small edits), written by myself, was published in Issue #283 of DNA Magazine. This review contains some spoilers.
Australian author James Tolcher’s debut book Poof is a harrowingly truthful biography. The book is an achievement and a chronicle of achievements: a “curriculum vitae”, as Tolcher puts it, of if not triumphs then survivals. Taken together, these survivals construct a panorama of the traumas and hostilities which punctuate, define or redefine, and sometimes end queer lives. That Tolcher has survived to tell his tales is an achievement all its own. That he does so with gripping prose is the achievement that hopefully will persuade readers to buy and read this profound and timely book.
Tolcher tells his story in a series of anecdotes, moving chronologically from his childhood to early adulthood, scaffolded in 5 sections with Anne Carson-like, Dionysian interstitials. Starting with his early years, Tolcher recounts bullying and exclusion from his peers (enabled by teachers and authority figures) and clashes with adults over his difference. While growing up with loving and supporting parents (his father is the first of four Michaels highlighted in the book), he is given no guidance, only silence when it comes to one of the central questions of his identity and the reason for his torment. He learns the power of the word “poof,” but both family and peers refuse to clarify the label with which he has been branded. The effect of this torment from all sides has drastic mental and physiological consequences: extreme anxiety, resulting in debilitating shyness and constant indigestion and diarrhea that permanently shaped his physical development. At moments he almost finds solidarity with other queer youth, but those opportunities pass quickly. Through willpower, he is able to transfer from his soul-crushing school to an arts and technical academy which is an oasis, if too little too late. These first two chapters are peppered with flashes to the near-present: fragments of gay nightlife and parties with their own paranoias, bullying and excesses.
After school life, Tolcher escapes Australia for London where he has his first sexual experiences away from the hostilities of home. Exploitative work situations reinforce Tolcher’s disillusionment with WASP respectability and the Protestant Work Ethic, and after a brief time, he returns home to Brisbane (to work situations no better than abroad). Again seeking escape, he connects through the internet with a high-profile CEO in Sweden, “M.M.” (another Michael), and enters into a Master/Slave dynamic with him. He serves as the live-in sex toy for this Swedish high-ranked executive for a while. Eventually Tolcher grows to feel he deserves emotional commitment from M.M. and returns home unrequited (though he remains in touch). Throughout this third chapter, Tolcher again returns to the near-present, inserting lurid sadomasochistic sessions with “Pig” (another Michael) involving physical torture, meth use, exhibitionism and financial domination; a reversal of the roles of Dom and Sub that Tolcher experienced with M.M. that blurs dark fantasy with shocking reality.
Tolcher meets other sadistic men who take him to places many kinksters only find in erotic fiction. Bondage, flogging, public sex, and objectification become Tolcher’s connection to competitive men who project self-confidence and delight in his capacity for physical pain. Men around him introduce Tolcher to the scene of Leather bars, clubs, and contests, and he enters gay BDSM’s social world with enthusiasm and even more sexual exploits. Despite his volunteering and contributions, he is twice snubbed in his efforts to win leather bar contests. It is amid this involvement that Tolcher recounts the arc of his relationship with, Jeremy, a man whose initial tenderness and affection gives way to physical and psychological abusive.
In the final chapter, Tolcher introduces the final Michael, an arch-embodiment of the series of sadistic men who extract Tolcher’s pain for their own pleasure while denying him genuine commitment. He intercuts these hair-raising physical tortures and heartaches with his witnessing a relationship between his friend Jacob and Jacob’s wealthy boyfriend Andy. Filled with glamorous destinations as the backdrop for drug and alcohol-fueled squabbles between Jacob and Andy, their toxic relationship culminates in a climax that, in a book full of shocks, reaches yet a new level of extremity. Finally, Tolcher breaks off from this last Michael to establish his own independence and sense of self.
Writing in a range of modes, including exalted, Whitmanesque pronouncements, postmodern, dialogues, and his own voice of mannered outrage, Tolcher recounts key experiences that both defined his queerness and illuminate how his queerness defined his experience of life. Cutting across the five chapters of the book are two distinct narratives: First, Tolcher’s chi...