Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Hour Between by Sebastian Stuart Boston Queer History. In the academic year preceding the Summer of Love, a young man named Arthur who struggles with his sexuality, is thrown out of Collegiate, a private school in Manhattan. His distant parents deport him to a boarding school in Connecticut in the hope that he will make friends and do some work. He is a skinny, thoughtful kid who’d just as soon leave the frantic pace of the city, if only to take a breath. In 1973, I too, was all but ousted from a private school in Manhattan and sent off to a boarding school in Connecticut by a distant parent. I also was a skinny, overly sensitive kid who worried about being gay, the state of the world, and many other things that got in the way of a good time. Though I didn’t know it at the time, I needed to take a breath from the city, too. Once at the boarding school, Arthur meets Katrina, a fascinating but troubled daughter of a movie star who seems to know him better than he knows himself. Katrina is a kind of 16 year-old Judy Garland — small, fragile, but also larger than life. Her eyes are huge and almost too expressive. Her hair is short, jet-black and she pushes it back whenever she is nervous. She is spookily intuitive and broadly knowledgable but she rarely reads and never studies. All in all, Katrina is the kind of miraculous person you can meet when you’re a teenager because you still believe such a person exists. In keeping with the ever-present upheaval of the time, the boarding school itself is undergoing turmoil as the faculty has split into two camps: the lenient, pro-creativity side vs. the traditional, bed-check side. Was it David Olgilvy, the late, loquacious adman, who laid down the challenge that he could devise an ad that anyone in the world would stop and read? (If you find it was someone else, please write.) When asked how he could do this, Olgilvy said something like, “If I put your name in the ad, you’ll stop to look at it.” Well, yes, but you’d have to make almost 7 billion ads, one for every person on earth. But of course, that’s too literal. I assume Olilvy’s point was to create an ad that could speak to you in such a personal way that you’d have to stop and read it. For me, T he Hour Between is that kind of book. It had my name on it. Is its appeal universal enough for a larger audience? I think so. It is a coming of age book, full of interesting characters who illuminate a time when everything was changing. Even when Sebastian Stuart’s characters are at their snottiest, elitist worst, their vulnerability saves them. You care about what will happen to them and you mourn the ones you suspect won’t survive the cynicism and drugs that formed the dark side of the Age of Aquarius. A beginner’s guide to the music of . “Belle And Sebastian were the product of botched capitalism. It would be nice to say they were the children of socialism, but it would be a fib.” So begins a typically wry paragraph in the liner-note “biography” that accompanies If You’re Feeling Sinister , a spot-on that did as much to build the legend of Belle And Sebastian as any of the playfully arch myth-making the band members undertook in lieu of traditional promotional efforts around its 1996 release in the band’s native . (’97 in the United States, brought across the pond by EMI subsidiary The Enclave, which was in the process of collapsing by the time the band made its own Stateside trip.) But such crass shilling would seem out of place next to the 10 songs of the band’s second LP, its first recorded as a proper band. Retiringly composed and literately clever, If You’re Feeling Sinister sprung primarily from the pen of band leader Stuart Murdoch, who’d spun the group out of a university course a few years before the record’s release. Yet even this early in his recording career, Murdoch exhibited a preternatural gift with bittersweet melody and the even rarer talent for jumping into the minds of his song’s characters: outcasts, dreamers, and inveterate wasters of potential suited to an author who spent years bedridden by an ailment commonly known as chronic fatigue syndrome. Never growing any louder than the playground yelps sampled at the start of its title track, If You’re Feeling Sinister nevertheless touched off plenty of noise among record collectors, message-board dwellers, and the British music press—a curiosity pushed along by Murdoch and company’s refusal to give interviews to the British press, leaving the NME and Melody Maker to splash around in the final, turbid waves of Britpop. It’s just as well, as the world of If You’re Feeling Sinister feels light-years removed from Cool Britannia, its arrangements at turns baroque and unsophisticated, Murdoch’s half-whispered lilt lacking any trace of swagger. In essence, the band was forcing its small-but-passionate following— appropriate for a record where the word “cult” jumps out at the listener from the opening lyric—to give a close listen to songs that still feel impeccably crafted and impossibly intimate 17 years on. Band members eventually started speaking more freely about their music to the press, but there remains a thrill to, say, sussing out the relationship between the titular characters of “Me And The Major” or contemplating the lonely majesty of the protagonists in “The Fox In The Snow.” There are Belle And Sebastian fans who argue that Murdoch would never best the likes of If You’re Feeling Sinister standouts like “Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying” or “Judy And The Dream Of Horses.” And while that argument may have some merit, it ignores the rest of Belle And Sebastian’s stunning mid-’90s creative tear, a period where like If You’re Feeling Sinister and its predecessor, , were supplemented by a series of EPs that were just as crucial to the band’s development and mystique—and the development of its mystique. Later repackaged as a three-disc box set (and then sequenced as the first disc of the indispensable compilation Push Barman To Open Old Wounds ), the non-album releases , , and 3.. 6.. 9 Seconds Of Light are of a piece with their long-playing contemporaries. But they also map conventions established by those records onto new directions Belle And Sebastian would pursue in later years, directions laid out by the triumphant girl-group chug of “Lazy Line Painter Jane” or the spy-guitar summer-reading list of “Le Pastie De La Bourgeoisie.” Similarly of note are the increased contributions from the likes of vocalist-cellist and bassist , moves that would eventually have their own, stratifying effects on Belle And Sebastian. While Tigermilk was Belle And Sebastian’s first album, it was definitely not the first one that most people heard. Recorded for a music-business school project at Stow College in , the album was initially (and barely) released in a limited edition of just a thousand copies. Those records didn’t make it too far out of Scotland, but copies were carefully placed into the hands of influential DJs, who played it enough that it attracted the attention of record labels, thus launching Belle And Sebastian as a going concern. For a solid couple of years after If You’re Feeling Sinister , it was incredibly hard to come by a copy of Tigermilk . Fans traded coveted cassettes —there were no torrents, MP3s, or ZIP files to be had in those days—and marveled at both the scarcity and the songs. What they learned: Tigermilk was every bit as good as Sinister , and in spots it’s even better. The band actually agreed, at least to a degree: Paul Whitelaw’s detailed bio Belle And Sebastian: Just A Modern Rock Story claims that the band members much preferred the first album to the legendary second. The truth is that they’re massively similar, which shouldn’t be a surprise considering they were both released in 1996. Both find Murdoch at an untouchable place with his songwriting: Wistful, gorgeous songs like “The State I Am In” and “Expectations” nakedly explored coming of age in the U.K. in the ’90s, and they’re as timeless as anything written early on by one of Murdoch’s idols, Morrissey. (It’s no surprise that Belle And Sebastian found a readymade fan base among Smiths disciples.) Advanced Studies As the proper follow-up to If You’re Feeling Sinister , The Boy With The Arab Strap faced an uphill battle. Murdoch increased that challenge by encouraging his band members to contribute their own songs to the mix, which provides moments both complementary (Campbell’s lead on the lovely “Is It Wicked Not To Care?”) and jarring (’s lead on the shoulda-been-a-B-side “Seymour Stein”). Still, there are enough absolutely fantastic songs on The Boy With The Arab Strap —which was named in honor of the fellow Scottish band, who weren’t too happy about it—that it’s worth exploring after exhausting the earlier discs. “Ease Your Feet In The Sea,” “Sleep The Clock Around,” and “Dirty Dream Number Two” are Belle And Sebastian classics. The early ’00s were a turbulent period for the band: A fickle flirtation with the film world, the departures of Campbell and David, the hit-and-miss singles collected on Push Barman To Open Old Wounds ’ second disc. The Belle And Sebastian that emerged in 2003 to release Dear Catastrophe Waitress startled longtime fans, playing polished pop songs that hearken back to Thin Lizzy (the horn-flecked single “I’m A Cuckoo”) in addition to Moz and the liner-note-praised jangle-pop outfit Felt. In the case of album-closer “Stay Loose,” some the tracks were actually (gulp) danceable . Peel back the slick production by Trevor “The Man Who Invented The Eighties” Horn, however, and this is still the same band. Dear Catastrophe Waitress is as interested in chronicling the emotional lows of life in the British school system (“Lord Anthony”) as it is mapping out bohemian travelogues while pondering the religious practices and/or sexual orientation of Major League Baseball all-stars (“Piazza, New York Catcher”). And as much as “Stay Loose” was a shock to the system, the nightlife epic “Your Cover’s Blown”—part of a run of EPs and singles compiled in 2013 as —made for an even starker display of the band’s shifting priorities. (Not that its club-ready flourishes should’ve surprised anyone with memories of Tigermilk ’s “Electronic Renaissance.”) More recent years have found Belle And Sebastian flirting with the Northern Soul sound that Murdoch had long professed love for. On two albums produced by Tony Hoffer—2006’s and 2010’s Write About Love —the band pushed the sunshiny sounds to the fore, and it was a smart move. In many ways, these records sound like they were made by a different band—one that got some vitamin D, or maybe some Prozac—but they should be experienced on their own lush merits. The sweet, wistful bedroom-pop is gone, but this can be pretty attractive just the same. Demerit Belle And Sebastian sprang almost fully formed from the mind of Stuart Murdoch, but as time went on the evils of democracy invaded. The band’s fourth album might sport the band’s greatest title, but Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant is a jumble of half-formed ideas put forth by various band members. It’s noble that Murdoch wanted to let his bandmates take the lead, but after a truly promising one-two punch to start the album—“I Fought In A War” and “The Model”—in comes guitarist Stevie Jackson on “Beyond The Sunrise” and brings the whole thing to a grinding halt with an oddly low, supremely distracting voice. and Isobel Campbell take turns at the mic as well, and by the time Murdoch grabs it back for a pair of solid songs (the depressing “Chalet Lines” and bubbly “Nice Day For A Sulk”) it’s basically too late. Fold Your Hands would’ve made a fine EP, but as it stands, it begs for the fast-forward button or a carefully culled playlist. Miscellany Much of the same could be said of Storytelling , the band’s attempt at soundtracking the Todd Solondz film of the same name—only six minutes of which ended up in the final cut. It’s easy to categorize the album as another misfire, marked as it is by incomplete concepts and punctuated every few tracks by out-of-context dialogue from the film’s ensemble. But what producer and honorary Belle Tony Doogan managed to stitch together from those sessions is more anomaly than outright failure, the product of a frustrating back-and-forth between a director recovering from a divisive sophomore effort (1998’s Happiness ) and a band in a difficult period of transition. Some of the instrumental passages are truly lovely (though it’s telling that one is titled “Fuck This Shit,”) and there’s a fascination in hearing Murdoch write for someone else’s characters. “Big John Shaft” sounds every bit the closing-credit number it was written to be—at the very least, its guitar parts laid the groundwork for the Dear Catastrophe Waitress highlight “If She Wants Me.” When contributions to the whole weren’t enough, some members of Belle And Sebastian took to solo careers. Isobel Campbell started releasing records as The Gentle Waves in 1999, with The Green Fields Of Foreverland , and she left the band in 2002. She went on to record with / dude , but nothing she’s done has matched her days with B&S. (Though she’s surely glad to be away from a band fronted by her ex-boyfriend.) Lots of record labels wanted to be in the Belle And Sebastian business in the late ’90s, which led to the release of Looper’s debut album, Up A Tree , on . Led by Belle’s other Stuart, Stuart David, the group took similarly twee sentiments but added electronic elements—bits of scratching here, some keyboard there. But it was David’s spoken-word bits, which had also found their way into some Belle songs, that attracted fans of his main band. David ended up leaving Belle And Sebastian after Fold Your Hands , and Looper is apparently still a going concern, though it hasn’t been in the public eye much in recent years. Murdoch too pursued a personal vision between the release of The Life Pursuit and Write About Love , venturing into screenwriting in order to find a home for a batch of songs that didn’t suit his main gig. Or rather, they didn’t suit the voice of his main gig: The music of is Belle And Sebastian by any other name, Murdoch and his bandmates playing backing musicians in a Northern Soul opera set among the young, hip, and mentally anguished in swinging Glasgow. Led by the dusky voice of one-time B&S record-sleeve star Catherine Ireton, God Help The Girl (the album) marked the continued refinement of the band’s sound; God Help The Girl (the movie) was directed by Murdoch in 2012 and is currently set for a 2013 release. The Essentials. 1. Tigermilk The first Belle And Sebastian album sounds like an incredible songwriter just finding himself artistically—Stuart Murdoch’s shyness and vulnerability combine with his clever confidence for a beautiful set of songs from an undeniably singular voice. It’s clear he surprises himself, which is rare and beautiful. 2. If You’re Feeling Sinister Effortlessly tuneful, lyrically affecting, and occasionally quite funny, Belle And Sebastian’s second full-length release is the kind of record other bands struggle for entire careers to make. That’s made all the more impressive by the fact that it was recorded by a group of musicians who were still learning to be a legitimate band—a learning curve that led to some creative dead ends, none of which are heard here. 3. Dear Catastrophe Waitress This record isn’t technically a return to form because it doesn’t sound like any form of Belle And Sebastian that previously existed: It begins with an openly strutting shuffle and ends on a post-punk-inspired tangle of honest-to-goodness guitar heroics. Yet for all its eclecticism, the band’s comeback from its post- Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant malaise is defined by the voice of Stuart Murdoch—a little older, a little more refined, and a whole lot better at determining the proper time to pass the wheel to one of his bandmates. 4. Push Barman To Open Old Wounds During its late-’90s heyday, in those heady days when the band was still mysterious, Belle And Sebastian released a string of EPs whose songs are as strong (and sometimes stronger) than the ones on Tigermilk and If You’re Feeling Sinister . This 2005 comp collects the tracks from those releases, plus a couple from after the turn of the century that weren’t quite as great. But disc one of Push Barman is every bit as good as the band’s first two albums. “Dog On Wheels,” “String Bean Jean,” and “A Century Of Fakers” are canonical. A Guy’s Moleskine Notebook. [296] The Hour Between – Sebastian Stuart. ” I wanted to live in safe little rooms like that, busy with small domestic chores, away from the pull of my fevered needs and confusion of my future. ” [ 11 :93] The Hour Between reads like an amalgam of different coming of age stories. Set in 1960s New England, the charmer of a novel is well-written and rife with all the usual ingredients: class difference and anxiety, celebrity, vanity, counter-culture experimentation, suicide, alcoholism, and drugs. On the heels of his expulsion from a Manhattan prestigious college preparatory, Arthur MacDougal, who is really a good kid who struggles to come out to his parents, is sent off to a boarding school run by Christian Scientists in Connecticut. There he meets Katrina Felt, troubled daughter of a Hollywood movie star, and with whom he forges a tender friendship as both are poised on the cusp of adulthood. The truth was that while I pretended to myself that being gay was no big deal, words like pervert, abnormal, sick rattled around in my psyche. Plus everyone said it would ruin your prospects in life, but that didn’t bother me much, I mean it wasn’t like I was planning to run for Congress or play for the Yankees—in fact, being an outsider was my favorite part about being gay. [ 8 :69] As Arthur struggles with his sexuality, he also becomes a Holden Caulfield-like figure—a protector to Katrina, who is pulled down by the heart- breaking secrets and sorrows of her past. The scene in which Arthur speaks to the shrink about helping Katrina rather than his homosexuality is both funny and touching. Although a classmate constantly taunts him with a masculine sexuality that is deprived o affection, his coming to terms of his sexuality is rather downplayed in the novel. Part of me was thrilled but I was also sad—Katrina was going to have a big-time life and I doubted there would be much room in it for her nerdy little high-school best-friend- du-jour . . . She had chosen me to be her friend because I was easy, needy, and available. I was eminently replaceable. [ 25 :182] The Hour Between is about friendship and self-discovery in the age of early adulthood. It reinforces the stereotypical rich kid behavior: boozing, doing drugs, spending huge money, spinning out of control. Thankfully it does not steer into a continuous trance of debaucheries that reminds me of Less Than Zero. 248 pp. [ Read / Skim / Toss ] [ Buy / Borrow ] Share this: Like this: Related. 3 Responses. This is really freaky….believe it or not, I pulled this book off the shelf at the library today, and then put it back. It wasn’t even on the new book shelf, but it just caught my eye. For now, I am glad that I put it back…too many other books to read. Thanks for your review Matt. This sounds like an interesting book. Interesting that his sexuality isn’t the focus of the book, it is just kind of there, that sounds interesting. I’m not sure about the reference to Holden Caulfield though, was not a fan of that book… so this one sounds good but I think I’ll wait. The Hour Between: A Novel. Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Things I liked about this book: Stuart's writing style Reading the perspective of a gay teenager (I don't know that I ever have before) The dialogue in Sophia's class. Things I did not like about this book: I wanted more--more to happen in terms of conversations between Arthur and his parents about him being gay, more in terms of Arthur finding Katrina in the present (though this is selfish of me),and more in terms of growth of the characters. On that note, I know that it is natural for people to just grow apart, especially at high school age, but that does not mean that people NEVER have the conversations they need to have. This does happen some of the time. Arthur never talked to Katrina about her bad choices and her family relationships, Nicholas never tells Sapphire how he feels, Arthur and his parents never really talk about his homosexuality, etc. I suppose that it says a lot about this book that I wanted more rather than wanting it to end. Stuart wrote a humorous (at points), entertaining take on what could've been a typical "boarding school coming-of-age" novel. I read it in one afternoon. ( ) I really enjoyed the beautiful writing of this novel about Arthur MacDougal, an incoming senior (having flunked out of Colleigate HS) to this alternative boarding school in Conn. run without rules, tests, and based on the UK system of tutors and indvidualized learning. While there, he is among 7 other graduating seniors, but the story is based on him and his clique of: Sapphire, Nicholas and Katrina Felt-daughter to a famous movie star. Told with an almost whisper and sparing words, this novel brought me directly into the world of young Arthur. New York/downtown in the late 1960s-a time when drugs, and sex began to open up worlds;and the young were finding their voice. Arthur is also discovering his own budding sexuality, which is done with grace. Can't wait to read more by this author. ( ) Sebastian Stuart, The Hour Between. " I fell in love with [this book] on page one, and by novel's end had appointed myself president of Sebastian Stuart's fan club. This story is all heart--at the same time it's layered with wit, sorrow, and pitch-perfect satire. " Elinor Lipman author of The Family Man. Sebastian Stuart has written novels, screenplays and many Off-Off Broadway plays. His novels include The Mentor and Charm! by Kendall Hart, a New York Times bestselling tie-in with the soap opera All My Children. A native New Yorker, he now lives in Cambridge with novelist Stephen McCauley. Event date: Event address: The Hour Between (Paperback) When Arthur McDougal is kicked out of Manhattan's toniest boys' school, his parents ship him off to the only place that will take him in--the Christian Science -inflected Spooner School. There, in the woods of Connecticut, Arthur meets Katrina Felt, the charming, troubled daughter of a Hollywood movie star. As Arthur struggles with his sexuality and Katrina's beauty and talent land her in a Broadway musical, the two forge a tender friendship. But while Arthur's confidence grows, Katrina is pulled down by the heartbreaking secrets and sorrows of her past. By year's end, their lives will be changed forever, and their friendship will be over. Set in the late 1960s, The Hour Between is a compelling portrait of a time and place, replete with drugs, sex, Andy Warhol, a cast of truly memorable secondary characters, and some of the sharpest and funniest dialogue in recent memory. Sebastian Stuart has written novels, plays, and screenplays. His last novel was ghostwritten (with acknowledgment): Charm by Kendall Hart, a character on the soap opera All My Children. Charm spent five weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. A native New Yorker, Stuart now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with novelist Stephen McCauley.