Morehead

Let me caution you that this is a very explicit book. But once I accepted the language and visual images rolling around in my head, the story is quite good. Dave Morehead is trying to find his own identity during a time of great change in San Francisco. At first struggling to accept the lifestyle choices of those around him, he eventually gains great respect and friendship from those he formerly judged.

Dave is not an easy character to like in the beginning. He is crude, brash and self absorbed. But as he grew and changed, so did my feelings toward him. I began to like him and hold out hope that he would find his happiness.

Another great book from Jeffrey Hickey. His humor is limitless and his story telling is thoroughly enjoyable. Some of my favorite chapters are the ones titled "Work In The Eighties". I won't tell you about them here, you need to read them for yourselves.

From The Midwest Book Review

A transitory time and a changing time. "Morehead" is a novel by Jeffrey Hickey, as he presents a straight man living in San Francisco in its turbulent time of the transition from the 1970's to the 1980's. Presenting of picture of the city's triumphs, tragedies during this rough period, "Morehead" is a strongly recommended pick for those seeking a driven depiction of the place and era, much recommended.


From Cozylittlebookjournal.com

Morehead by Jeffrey Hickey is a rare find. It's a novel, a pseudo-memoir, that has all the markings of a low budget, self-published work (because it is) but all the potential of a book put out by a major publishing house. The book may be slightly rough around the edges (physically, like with fonts and layout choices) but don't be fooled. Beneath the surface is a story that is eminently readable. It tells the story of Dave Morehead, a young man living in San Francisco in the 1970's and 80's, a "straight young man in a gay old city" as the author puts it.

Morehead's story is told through journal entries and school assignments (here's where better formatting might have helped the story along) and is probably more than a little autobiographical from the author's own college years.

What makes Morehead truly special (besides the title, which made my partner Mike giggle like a twelve-year-old every time he heard it. "More head. Heh heh.") is the audiobook. The author was kind enough to send me the sound recording--that I believe he said he had made with his friends--and it was surprising fantastic.

I'm not always a big fan of audiobooks. I find most of them struggle to keep up with the original source material, hoping to do it justice without ruining it with bad narration or misguided accents. The good ones are able to be as good as the book but many (many) are not. It's only very rarely that I find an audiobook is actually able to improve the author's vision. But Hickey and his cast do an amazing job of breathing life into the characters and making the story accessible and cohesive.

Mary Lavers
Book Blogger, Cozy Little Book Journal



From BookPleasures.com

Veering right away from the subject of pro football of which Jeffrey Hickey's first adult novel, The Coach's Son, centered comes this steamer of a novel, which also, centers on a young man's coming of age, although this time on a college campus that is literally swarming with gays. It is, after all, situated in one of the most homophillic of all cities, San Francisco at the height of the gay rights movement, in the late 1970's to mid-1980's. In the preface to this novel Hickey prepares the reader for the range of formats that follow, claiming that it is "abridged from the journals, notebooks, and cassettes of Dave Morehead, a straight young man living in a gay old city." Hickey prepares us for a somewhat unusual juxtaposition of a range of scenarios that are written very much tongue in cheek--from its very title Morehead, one is made aware of that fact.

In Morehead, the main protagonist reveals the inner workings of his mind and psyche as he has to become increasingly assertive and sure of his own heterosexuality while being challenged as to the authenticity of his true self. Starting out at San Francisco State University as a young adult, having just come into his majority, with an urgent need to seduce women, he finds himself in conflict with the prevailing ethos of the day. What lies ahead is a journey of self-discovery that has him striving not only to come to a deeper understanding of his own motives and intentions, but also growing in empathy and intellectual grasp of those around him, who are threatened by such devastating problems as the AIDS crisis. There are lighter moments, though, such as his experiences with bouts of temporary work that interlace the other segments of the novel.

The entire text is overlain with a continuous thread of sexual innuendo, which acts as a gel, binding the different parts of the text together. After finishing this book, I must say that I continued to see double entendre in everything that I read for a couple of days. Clearly this book is neither intended for any public library collection, nor fit for any maiden aunt's private collection (though with the latter, you never do know...). One regret that I do have about this work is that its different components are so loosely bound together that some overall coherence is lost. However, it does make for an interesting, slightly perverted, read, especially for those of slightly jaundiced mind.

Lois Henderson
Book Pleasures

5.0 out of 5 Stars
By John on September 17, 2013