Shuttlecock (1972) by Samuel Steward writing as Phil Andros.

For the main article on the Phil Andros Novels and Stories, click here.

Phil is back in the States, living in Berkeley. He’s still hustling, but approaching thirty and starting to think about his future. Identity is a theme throughout the novel, who am I really? Gay, straight, bi? Top or bottom? Passive/agressive? Independent, cold, or sentimental and longing for love? Phil quickly meets two characters in the opening chapter: Andy Gaylord, a slight, red-headed gay boy; and Larry Johnson (Steward has fun with embedding double entrendres in his character’s names) a beautiful, masculine stud, but tripping on acid and sporting the long-hair of a Berkeley “love-child”. Phil brings Larry back to his apartment and, after sex, offers to let him stay for a few weeks while Larry looks for a job. This novel, more than the previous entries, starts to feel like all of the novels are an interconnected, multi-volume work: a porno Proust. It’s also more literary than the previous novels. There’s still the sex, but Steward’s writing, always elevated, is even better here. The sex scenes seem dutiful. Both the author and his hustler character are looking for something more. Larry, physically, reminds Phil of Phil’s one true love, the cop Greg Wolfson from The Boys in Blue. There are a lot of references in this novel to previous episodes in Phil’s life, including a reference to the Leonard Bernstein character from Roman Conquests. Phil gives himself the name “Shuttlecock” thinking about all the places he’s been to, and all the men he’s had.

Because Larry is looking for a job, and Larry reminds Phil of Greg, Phil plants the seed of Larry joining the San Francisco police force. Larry is reluctant at first as he thinks of himself as more on the side of the lovers of the world rather than the law enforcers, but gradually, with Phil’s prodding, and Larry’s own attraction to power and authority, Larry comes around. He cuts off his long hair. He starts taking the dominant role in sex with Phil. The police academy training works a change in him, whether twisting his true nature, or uncovering it, is the thematic question of the novel. Meanwhile, though, darkness in Larry’s character begins to come forward. His dominance of Phil starts to border on abuse. There’s a question in his past about a baby he fathered whose death may not have been the accident it seemed. Phil wonders about his own attraction to cruelty and thinks about the murderer/artists in Genet’s novels. Phil reconnects with Andy Gaylord and Andy tells him a few additional things about Larry that deepen Phil’s suspicions. Then, Phil discovers an envelope in Larry’s dresser drawer that includes typed up police reports against Phil, and Andy, and a dozen others, accusing them of sex and drug crimes, all post-dated and prepared for when Larry is finally sworn in as a cop. Phil hatches a plot to betray the betrayer, which consumes the final chapters of the novel. With Andy’s help, Phil procures drugs to plant against Larry, and he fills out a statement accusing Larry of sex and drug activity that would disqualify him from a job with the force and mails that to the background investigator. Then Phil packs a couple of suitcases and leaves for the airport, but not before he stumbles onto one last blowjob from the attendant at the heliport.