My novel, The Strange Haunting of Johnny Feelwater, deals with primordial issue of male bisexuality. Happily married, believing he had consigned his attraction to other men to his days in college, Johnny crosses paths with Cassandra Mott. Once his departed grandmother’s lover, she has come back from the past for reasons of her own, using the irresistible beauty of her brother to reawaken the urges Johnny has long since ignored. The supernatural elements of this tale are the catalysts that propel him down a mystifying road of self-identity. You’ll feel his emotions as Johnny grapples with his sexuality, what he views as both a blessing and a curse. You’ll wonder about the direction he may go. And you might even identify with him.
From Logunede Jones on Amazon
I thoroughly enjoyed The Strange Haunting of Johnny Feelwater. Savannah (Georgia) and Kenya come alive in author Martin Brant’s descriptions. The diverse cast of characters is compelling, and the suspense is built-in by the multi-sensorial descriptions of a haunted house filled with a range of unsettling beings, and by the question of what kind of intriguing “debauchery” Johnny will be coerced into next!
Johnny stumbles into a sticky web of relationships between his wife Marilee, the otherworldly siblings Julian and Cassandra, and his new friend Brian. Ultimately he realizes an important difference–love–between the nature of his relationship with Brian and that of his relationship with Julian. Marilee opens up to her body and its responses thanks to Johnny, and Johnny finally learns the reason for Cassandra’s revenge.
The ending is a terrific wham/bam whirl, with one surprise after another in the last few pages, including a main character’s deus-ex-machina solution, very nicely done.
The Strange Haunting of Johnny Feelwater is a portentous and philosophical novel, not to be confused with barely-sketched characters ripping each others’ pants off. Sure there’s sex: the erotic massage scene is riveting, and the leather “heathen” sequence appropriately disgusting yet compelling! But beyond this, Brant’s writing expertly explores the “haunting” of bisexuality: a phantom sex hovering in the wings, an obsession never completely conquered in the heft and smell of remembered flesh. At times the novel seems to confirm the common perception that bisexuality is merely the mid-life crisis of married men who realize they’re gay. But at other times, we read and understand the circumstances of characters for whom bisexuality is not a transitional phase, but a way of life.
Highly recommended, suspenseful, beautiful writing.
