Tommy's Tale: A Novel

In his debut novel Tommy's Tale, Alan Cumming writes like the love child of Nick Hornby and Dan Savage. His protagonist, Tommy, an E-popping, pansexual Londoner, reads like one of Hornby's won't-grow-up urban Peter Pans. The plot, of course, lies in seeing these characters dragged kicking and screaming into adulthood. Tommy eventually follows this story arc, but with a lot of absolutely filthy sex thrown in along the way--that's where the Dan Savage factor comes into play. Like that august columnist, Tommy never met a sex act he didn't want to a) engage in, and b) describe in lifelike detail. Aside from his sexcapades, Tommy spends his time hanging out with his sort-of boyfriend Charlie, working as a photographer's assistant, taking drugs, and creating a bohemian dream flat with his beloved roommates. His life is about fun until he finds himself growing attached to Charlie's 8-year-old son Finn. As a result of this relationship, he develops an itch to have a kid of his own, and the rest of this hyperkinetic, diaristic novel is devoted to that pursuit. Unfortunately, Tommy is a narrator utterly without a filter--he just natters on and on about whatever enters his head. At best, this style is chatty. At worst, it's out-and-out logorrhea. As an actor and a screenwriter, Alan Cumming is a dizzyingly sophisticated, gleefully ironic, and achingly sentimental force. Alan Cumming as an author is, well, not. --Claire Dederer