Times Square Cutie by Mykola Dementiuk

[reviews_and_ramblings]

As almost all the production by Mykola Dementiuk, Times Square Cutie is set in a lost and forgotten New York City, a place that, even if in broad daylight, it seemed to be always in the shadows, dirty and smelly, apparently with a danger behind each corner. Thinking at today NYC is like thinking to fashion and exclusivity, writing of that NYC is writing about desperate men and women, trying to reach the end of the day with something to eat and a roof atop your head; most of the time, the roof is always different, and what you wear is all your possession.

Billy is a transvestite young guy who wants to change his life, maybe or maybe not; he is tired to be used and abused, and for once he would like to be the one in power. When he meets Rebecca, a girl with a big heart, but with some missing wheels in her brain, he decides that he will be the one to take advantage of the situation. Sure, it’s not nice from his side, Rebecca is obviously not totally aware of what she is doing, but in the end Billy is doing nothing more than what many other men before him did, and, well, he is probably a lesser evil than most. Only that a not so innocent but mostly harmless game will take a dark turn, and the result for both Billy than Rebecca will be tragic.

This is probably a little piece of recent history, a novella describing lost time, lost people, lost hope; is Billy a victim or a villain? Maybe both, maybe none of them. Billy is like all the other characters from Mykola Dementiuk, older before his age, a young man that will probably not see his old age, unless he doesn’t leave NYC, since that city is like a trap; but that same city is also the only place where someone like Billy can live, even if it will be a short life.

http://shop.renebooks.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=DEMENTIUK%2D01

Amazon Kindle: Times Square Cutie
Publisher: Sizzler Editions (October 9, 2010)

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle