Let Me Kiss It Better
Elixirs for the Not So Straight and Narrow
Description
Billeh Nickerson tells it like it is: a wry and at times outrageous chronicler of contemporary gay life, written for those who can take it like a man, or at least read about it without squirming. In these charming and very funny essays, Billeh writes with disarming sweetness about love, sex, relationships, and subjects that might even make the women of Sex in the City blanch with embarrassment.
On occasion, Billeh is a Miss Manners for our times: after all, what would you do if you saw a friend at a nude beach who had toilet paper stuck to his genitals? Or what to do with friends who shave their pubes into artistic patterns, or those who insist on washing their dildoes in the dishwasher? Billeh also writes about what it feels like to be the token gay at a house party; laments the lack of Speedo-watching at the Summer Olympics now that bodysuits are the fashion the day; and describes what it feels like when the hot guy you've taken home turns out to be a Star Wars freak. (Nobody's perfect. )
More naked than David Sedaris, more fraudulent than David Rakoff, Billeh Nickerson's invigorating tonics are just what the doctor ordered. He's willing to explore new life and new civilization, and to go where no fag has gone before.
Reviews
The pieces [in Let me kiss it Better] cover his trademark interests--pop culture, childhood, sex (lots of it)--with a trademark tone: they're matter of fact, dotted with good humour and, well, fun.
- Xtra! West
-XTRA!West
Billeh Nickerson is a man of propositions and prepositions --through his prose we learn what has been in him, on him, beside him and in front of him. And the results, though not always pretty (honesty rarely is), are extremely entertaining. . . The good, the bad and the ugly; the foreign and the familiar--all are processed through Nickerson's mind into a kind of tasty prose smoothie and served up in generous portions.
- Outlooks
-Outlooks
Nickerson has a gift for writing about topics no one else will write about, much less talk about.
- X FActor
-X Factor
Nickerson deals with and emotes over [modern queer scenarios] with attractive honesty and wry humour. Like Sex in the City, but without too much on the City, this book was genuinely one of the funniest I've read in a long time.
- Gay Times (UK)
-Gay Times, UK
This is not a book that needs, or strives to be sexy, to get you off like a desperate lover with a low sense of self-esteem. Instead, like a perfect date, Nickerson endeavors to share with his reader his genuine affection for all that is sexy/queer/Canadian. Reading Let Me Kiss It Better is like listening to Julia Child talk about food or Duane "Dog" Chapman talk about kicking ass, or (I'm trying to think of someone Canadian) Celine talk about René. It is an unequivocal pleasure to read.
- Capital Xtra!
-Mariko Tamaki, Capital Xtra!
With the precision humor of a stand-up comedian, Nickerson riffs on the minutiae of gay life.
- Chicago Free Press
-Chicago Free Press
An amusing, intelligent, contemporary collection from an irreverant writer.
- Ottawa XPress
-Ottawa X Press
Nickerson's poems are based on his own experiences, but his ever-present humour elevates them above self-indulgence . .. Nickerson is adept at slipping shards of poignancy into otherwise humorous pieces . .. Nickerson is apparently a big hit on the live circuit, and it is not hard to see why: these poems are invariably witty, urbane, sexy, funny, and hugely likeable.
- Canadian Literature
-Canadian Literature 183