Shuck is the story of Jaeven, a street hustler, gay porn star, diarist, meth addict, and unpublished writer. The book takes place in the late 1990's in Manhattan. Shuck consists of short segments, narrated by Jaeven. We follow him episode to episode, and it quickly becomes apparent that Jaeven is a man worth following. He's witty, sometimes happy and somewhat miserable. He is often filled with both bravado and fear.

Shuck feels like a true story, and that's because it contains grains of truth from the author's previous existence as a porn star and high-priced escort. Cox has said that Shuck is fiction, but much of it is based on actual events(including an incredible scene where Jaeven shows up for his first porn shoot.)

At the heart of Jaeven's life is an artist named David, who allows Jaeven to stay in his apartment for $300 a month, and the promise of showing off any bruises and scrapes he acquires. David needs those bruises to come up with brand new colors. His most recent artistic endeavor includes turtles and markers. The relationship between David and Jaeven (platonic throughout the book) is confusing. Jaeven isn't quite sure if David is jealous of Jaeven's sex with other men, even though David and Jaeven have never had sex, though they sleep in the same bed.

There are scenes of great humor in the book, along with scenes that will make you cringe. Some sections consist of lists of reasons why New York is not America. Others contain lists of things Jaeven finds while dumpster diving. Mostly, though, the book is a brief excursion into a life most of us will never know. It was an amazing read. Highly recommended. ( )

The Book Report: In the late 1990s, hustler/street trash Jaeven Marshall gets rescued by remittance man/blocked perfectionsit artist Derek Brathwaite, who grooves on Jaeven's bruised and abused body. The two begin a peculiar and passionate love affair that never involves sex, but truly touches the heart of any romantic in its deep and vital connection. Jaeven uses Derek as a home base, a touchstone, and a security blanket. He rises (!) in the just-then-efflorescing porn world as a porn performer and a model, taking it as his 22yr-old naif would: His due. What no one but Derek, and the strange photographer/trick Richard, know is that Jaeven is a writer. A real one, one who writes and who sponges up images...the book is littered with lists Jaeven keeps of the "shit and ephemera" that Manhattan excels at putting in the path of the observant, letting the reader in on Jaeven's private coping mechanism for his rampant ADD (and his inability to break past the surface of anything, too)...so while he's using himself to live and eat and keep moving, he's fueling the creative rage inside himself. Derek, blocked because surfaces are all he knows, uses Jaeven's unpublished writing to break through into an actual creative frenzy, painting at last the gaudy and exciting colors that he's seen but never managed to reach inside to create before. Jaeven's downward track is, well, inevitable: He gets into meth, gets meth-mouth, stops getting calls from his various munificent tricks (except the peculiarly loyal Richard), and even manages to make Derek so angry that he gets thrown back onto the streets he's only just clawed his way up from. In the end, though, as is inevitable in a first novel, the redemption occurs and all is well.

My Review: It's a first novel, or I would've been more chary with my stars. I think it's a fun ride through a Manhattan that's been sanitized out of existence. I liked that Manhattan, I trolled it, and I felt at home in it; I'm inclined to spot Mr. Cox some points for that. It's reasonably clear to me that it's also a roman a clef, and that also counts in my ratings. I have no way of knowing how much of it is self-referential, but at a guess I'll say a lot. I like a writer whose take on himself isn't in any way reverential. I like reading about the world that my thirties were spent in. I like a lot the amiably nihilistic, irretrievably broken kid comes out (!) with hope, and therefore a future. It's not perfect, but damn it's good. Read it! ( )