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The House Beautiful
Author: Allison BurnettISBN: 0786717599
Allison Burnett took the gay literary world by storm with his first book, Christopher, about B.K. Troop, an erudite, witty, lecherous older gay man who falls for his straight neighbor. It came as a shock to many when he came out of the closet as a straight man. He'd never meant to deceive anyone, but between his name and his character -not to mention his love of antiques - everyone just assumed he had to be gay.
A couple years and a new publisher later, Burnett has brought B.K Troop back in The House Beautiful, the sequel to Christopher. The House Beautiful picks up four years after Christopher left off. B.K. has inherited a brownstone in NYC, and, to make ends meet, he's turned it into an artist's colony of sorts. B.K. has handpicked each artist with the idea that he will become their mentor, if not their muse. He keeps a close eye on all of them with them by eavesdropping, snooping, and the occasional, well-placed peephole. It's all in their best interests, of course.
Then along comes Adrian, a young man with little more than a trash bag full of papers and a lot of secrets. B.K. immediately decides that Adrian is a lyric poet at heart and only needs his help to discover his inner Keats.
The story is both laugh-out-loud funny and remarkably heartwarming. Burnett juggles a large cast of characters with ease. You come to care about each of them, and when you come to the last page, you'll wish you could spend more time in The House Beautiful.