Arguably, off topic for this forum, though the book describes a fairly promiscuous gay lifestyle in a time before the spectre of AIDS. Although Camus refers to many of his "Tricks" as 'boys', the youngest of them is about 20-22 years old. Notwithstanding, the book is worth adding to this ebook archive.
A succès de scandale in France, Renaud Camus's
Tricks is a graphic chronicle of a young French author's brief homosexual encounters. These twenty-five tricks— relations which take place only once: more than cruising, less than love—are played out against the backdrop of bars in Paris and Milan, sunlit Riviera beaches, parks, baths, movie houses, and bedrooms from New York to San Francisco.
Camus captures the immediacy of his sexual experiences with French farm boys and businessmen, New York “cowboys," California intellectuals, leather boys, and amyl-sniffing queens in explicit narratives filled with wit and affection. Camus does not justify, plead or interpret; he simply tells all—scenes and partners of the moment, from the first interested glances and small talk to the details of physical intimacy and final partings.
Tricks is new, unique, important—an original experiment in the depiction of sexuality. It is the first book to chart this one aspect of contemporary gay life directly and objectively without the distortions of sentimentality, sensationalism, or fantasy.
Quote: Called retrospectively by some English-language media an "edgy gay writer", Camus published in 1979 Tricks, a "chronicle" consisting of descriptions of homosexual encounters in France and elsewhere, with a preface by philosopher Roland Barthes; it remains Camus's most translated work. "Tricks" and "Buena Vista Park", published in 1980, were deemed influential in the LGBT community at that time. Camus was also a columnist for the French gay magazine Gai pied. This period of Camus's life has led American magazine The Nation to label him a "gay icon" who "became the ideologue of white supremacy," although Camus had rejected the concept of "homosexual writer" by 1982.
In more recent times, he is the inventor of the "Great Replacement", a far-right conspiracy theory that claims that a "global elite" is colluding against the white population of Europe to replace them with non-European peoples.
Camus's "Great Replacement" theory has been translated on far-right websites and adopted by far-right groups to reinforce the white genocide conspiracy theory. Camus has repeatedly condemned and publicly disavowed violent acts which have been perpetrated by far-right terrorists stemming from his theories.
