Fic Review - Rough Trade and others by M.Fae Glasgow

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

M.Fae Glasgow is one of my favourite Pros authors, and I totally intend to print out more of her fic tonight and read happily on, but the first one I pulled from the pile was Rough Trade, so I thought I'd start with that...

Rough Trade sees the lads start off on a sexual relationship, but not at all smoothly and happily - and M.Fae didn't ever pretend to be a fluffy writer of happy-fic, her stories tend to be gritty and uncomfortably realistic in many ways. Her lads are often rather prickly behind their jovial facades, and she's not afraid of showing that. No matter how much you want them to be different, in M.Fae's stories they are laid starkly bare in their views of the world, in where these came from, and they just don't always behave the way heroes are supposed to behave. A bit like in the eps, really... *g*

The thing is, through all the spikiness and grim grey of their world, M.Fae also shows us (in most of her stories) that the lads really do need and want and in fact love each other - it's just that circumstances, and the way they've grown up (and let's be honest, they're men who've grown up to be killers, for whatever reason) mean that they can't always be honest with each other, or even themselves, about that.

Rough Trade is very like that - Bodie does not want to admit to being "queer", and neither does Doyle when he's found out. Bodie is not kind, Doyle is not noble, but M.Fae showed me so well the reasons behind the way they were acting that on the one hand I was worrying that reality would continue to be reality and things would turn out badly, but on the other hand I was sure that it wouldn't - because the lads both knew, they just had to admit that they knew... Don't get me wrong, this isn't a "misunderstandings" story, I don't think I've ever read one of those by M.Fae, this is a full-on, real-hearted, keep-you-on-your-toes story. I love those kind. They make you think, and they involve you full-time, and you remember them afterwards. Brilliant.

Anyone else liking M.Fae..? *g*

Comments

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

I *might* have read this but I can't remember a thing about it! I've written a tiny bit about her on the other thread so I won't repeat myself here but I just wanted to add that another story by her (writing as L A Scotian) which I've always been very fond of is Back Alley - quite harsh, but wistful, too.

Thanks for the rec.

[firlefanzine.livejournal.com]

Strange, but I only know "Jingle Balls". (For Smirra's sake!) And I like it very much! It is witty and touching at the same time!
But why all those names? Does anybody know?

[probodie.livejournal.com]

I do like M Fae's fic, but I have to be in that kind of a mood to be able to read them. They are uncomfortably harsh and probably not how I ideally like to see my boys - but I guess they are probably more realistic because of who and what they are. No, you couldnt ever accuse M Fae of writing fluff, could you? lol

[windrain10.livejournal.com]

I'm not really crazy about her writing, no, but one of her stories was the first one I read in Pros (Wish I Wasn't Here, I think is the name of it) so I will never avoid reading her work. I got my feet wet w/ her :)

[metabolick.livejournal.com]

Some of M Fae I dislike; Snowbound comes to mind. The lads are so nasty to each other in that one - especially Doyle. I haven't read all of hers but so far my fave is Panting For It, which I just re-read because it's a Christmas fic.

What I love most about M Fae is her use of language. At times her turn of a phrase can just be exquisite. Here's an example from Panting For It:

So what if Doyle wanted to walk through his private wants and needs, browsing at a jumble sale of Bodie's secrets?

Sheer genius!

[kiwisue.livejournal.com]

I hadn't read this one in a while, so thanks for the prompt. Thoughts:

Themes: hard-edged lads; realism rather than romance; self-image, denial and; challenging fanon.

- they aren't at all fluffy and nice in this one, but they are recognisably them. Bodie makes up a tall story about Doyle's alleged tight-fistedness while Doyle cheerfully buys the first drink. Bodie calls him “Little Ray’: Doyle manages “to keep the grin from his own face: little Ray indeed!” They’re competitive, they slag each other off, but it’s the kind of competition and slagging that actually demonstrates that they’re comfortable with each other, at least until sex enters the equation. In the pub at the outset of the story they are clearly both together and apart from everyone else, particularly the women they hunt on the first visit. And on the second visit, when they’ve had a bad day, Bodie’s thoughts are centred on Ray: …if Doyle wanted to drown himself in drink, Bodie wasn’t going to gainsay him – what’s more, he’d even foot the bill, especially given what he owed Doyle beyond the realm of hard currency.”.

Ray has a secret, and I love the way she delivers hints about that from the outset. Bodie’s overt camping makes him uneasy – he understands his sexuality much better than Bodie does, but he’s fearful of what might happen if someone reports them to Cowley. And once Bodie finds him out he attempts to deny it, but Bodie’s onto him, he wants, needs to know.

On the other hand Bodie, who, we find out later, has had sexual relations with men, considers himself a ‘real man’, not anything remotely approaching a ‘queer’. As far as he’s concerned his forays into homosexuality were purely for a little extra cash, or for convenience (”…it was better round the back of the barracks, or in one or two pubs I know… Only enough to tide me over till payday once in a while…”).

(for those who like such things, a couple of links that show M Fae’s realistic approach is based on fact:
- A Bit of Scarlet (http://www.walnet.org/csis/biblios/monty_glover/index.html) (earlier than Pros, but still valid at the time)
- How to Pick Up a Guardsman (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/keithlondon/stradivarius/OurHistoryseventies.htm#HOW%20TO%20PICK%20UP%20A))

Of course, Bodie makes a complete mess of things. To begin with, he behaves towards Ray as though he’s simply a convenient means to get his rocks off. And this would seem intolerably harsh, if we didn’t have those little clues to keep us going. He tells himself he doesn’t see himself as sentimentally attached to anyone, but M Fae keeps reminding us – and Bodie – that when it comes down to it he would do absolutely anything for Doyle.

I love the way they battle with each other, as equals. I love the way that M Fae gives us enough of what’s going on inside each of their heads (through POV changes and, sometimes, through statements of what one of them is thinking that we know are false) to keep hoping. The ending is not a clear path to the future (and given it’s a story set pre-series, it probably can’t be), but they’ve turned a corner and that in itself is extremely satisfying.

The only part that I wondered about was whether Macklin made an entirely believable macguffin.

One favourite line: ”Bodie leaned on the kitchen counter, dizzied as much by what had happened as by his own conflicting emotions, innumerable desires at war with other wants and needs, and all of it tangling like string in the aftermath of a kitten.”

[heliophile-oxon.livejournal.com]

M. Fae is an extremely clever and skillful writer, and does indeed craft a great many memorable lines! Her vision of the lads themselves is sometimes too dark for me, and there are fics where she has them treat each other worse than I feel their relationship warrants (yes they are professional killers, and their characterisation could easily be stretched to dehumanising others, but they are a mobile ghetto and I think each needs to include the other as a fellow insider), but in any case that's a matter of taste and interpretation ... I do admire her writing but I think there are times when she lets sheer craft and virtuosity and her love of the baroque ornament in language edge too close to centre-stage. Ah, but when she's good she's very very good! Some of those turns of phrase are downright amazing!