A Cage of Bones

Rating:
Summary: Sebastian Beaumont for Gay Times, London, U.K., February 199
Review: A Cage of Bones is a story set largely in the modelling world. Warden is Canadian and unaware of the commercial potential of his looks until he is whisked away to fame and fortune by an Italian modelling agency. Jeffrey Round clearly knows the business he is writing about, and gives the story a pleasing twist when he injects his narrative with high drama in the form of Warden's affair with Joshua Behrens, a radical pop star with political ideals, who will drag Warden into deeper trouble than he can possibly imagine.

A good read.

Rating:
Summary: Kamal Al-Solaylee for The Toronto Star Online, Dec 97
Review: Sexy and intelligent novel mixing fashion with politics.

Jeffrey Round's A Cage of Bones follows the experiences of Warden, a Toronto gay man who makes it big on the catwalks of Europe. I found Round's writing to be both seductive and insightful. The novel reveals a writer whose life experience has enriched his outlook on life; someone who is now in a position to share some of this with his readers. Round's novel is permeated by this sense of confidence and strong moral vision.

A Cage of Bones is A Room with a View for the gay 90s. It is hilariously funny but its social and political philosophy is astute. The fashion and alternative rock worlds, the two main settings for the novel, are described with meticulous but loving details.

Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Steve Nugent for Fab Magazine, Toronto, April 1998
Review: The writing here is graceful and stylish which is in keeping with the theme of the novel - the fashion industry. Who can resist the visual impact of those beauties prancing down the catwalk, trying to make us believe that the clothes mean something to them while we know that they just want us to look at them?

The unsophisticated Warden Fields, from Toronto, is one such, having been pressured to model in Europe by a model agency. He had earlier been spotted in a group of volleyball players at Hanlan's Point for a jean commercial as the all-Canadian boy. So off he goes, in his naive way, to be absorbed into that volatile atmosphere, and to fall for Joshua who puts political activism before commitment, thereby drawing him into illegal activity, and eventually, jail.

The story is fluid and clearly based in the author's experiences in the fashion trade, he is only unconvincing when he assures us, for legal purposes, that it is a work of fiction.