The Trouble Boy

by Tom Dolby

Book Overview

At 22, Toby Griffin wants it all - fame, fortune and a good-looking boyfriend by his side. For now, he's got a freelance job for an online magazine, a sublet in the East Village and a group of friends with a taste for fashion, booze and other men. But everything changes when Toby suddenly gets the chance of a lifetime, working as a personal assistant to a hip film mogul. Now he's swilling champagne with the best of them, but he still feels that making...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 075820616X
• ISBN13: 9780758206169
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation
• Length: 262 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

sparkling!

Just finished Tom's book and I have to say it was very enjoyable. It's packed with vivid images that brought sights, sounds and smells to me during the read. I loved how he spun a tale that stayed true to its theme throughout - it flowed very well. What I enjoyed the most was how he wrapped everything at the end. Unlike some books, I felt it allowed me to create my own illusions for what the future held for Toby and completely satisfied with the ending. I commend Tom for a flawless debut.

Shattering a Myth

Dolby. Tom, "The Trouble Boy", Kensington, 2004. Shattering a Myth Amos Lassen After reading Tom Dolby's new book , "The Sixth Form" due to be released in January 2008, I went back to reread the novel "The Trouble Boy" which he wrote in 2004. I am firmly convinced that Dolby is an author to watch. The two books are monuments in gay literature as Dolby manages to blend fact with fiction and give us a picture of how we live. "The Trouble Boy" shatters the myth that the party boys of New York City have wonderful times and great sex lives. (At least that is what we have always thought in Arkansas). Toby Griffin, our hero, recently graduated from an Ivy League college and now spends his time at the "in" scene of lower Manhattan. He surrounds himself with friends who are aware socially as they adhere to their own upward mobility. Toby, himself, comes from a wealthy background so he knew how to act around those he chose to be friends with. The story is the fictionalized account of a man's first year in New York and Dolby gives the narration in clear crisp prose. Toby is a man with a goal--to be a screenwriter and he thinks that there is only way to deal with life and that has nothing to do with the life of privilege from which Toby comes. As he waits for one of his screenplays to be accepted, he takes a job as a nightlife editor, as a hip "dot comer", as an assistant to a producer. His idea of a balanced life includes going to the bars of the East Village and the West Village alike. This gives the backdrop of the novel--a kind of hedonism that is, in many ways, counter-productive. The story is straightforward and quite bold. The night life of New York City has always held a sense of glamour for those who do not have the chance to experience it and Dolby rips that glamour away. Our hero, Toby, with his weakness for vodka and cranberry and recreational "bumps of coke" does not come across as a romantic hero but rather as one who has trouble knowing who he is and what he wants. His life is not so good--his sexual relationships, his friendships, his idea of love and his ideals for working in the film industry all go belly up in his face. Toby does not understand love or acceptance until the final page of the novel in a scene that is so beautifully rendered and presented and tender that it brings the entire story to a bittersweet close. It's an amazing book which even with its ugly looks at the Manhattan gay scene manages to come across as a story of acceptance and identity

Promising Debut Novel

Looking only at the inside flap of the book (come on, we're gay, we do it) it's hard to imagine that a strikingly handsome author of Dolby descent would be able to write a novel about being (or perceiving oneself as being) .. well, average, insecure and confused as to one's place in the world.Actually READING the book, though, you find that his main character is all of those things. Cute and young enough to possibly make up for not being TOTALLY hot, Toby, the main character, seems to do nothing but screw up opportunities to 'elevate' himself to the A-list in a snotty, screwed-up New York of the new millenium.The beauty of this book, though, is that like Sex & the City and Less than Zero - two books this one has been likened to - it has nothing to do with New York or snotty A-lister's or even young almost-hot men.. rather, it's a story about a person coming of age in a time where everything seems possible, everything seems desirable. His Toby, however, is not unlike the rest of us: he wants to be successful, he wants to find love, and he wants to maintain his sense of self but has to do so in spite of horrible bosses, frenemies (the one Sex and the City reference that fits - the episode where friends act like enemies) and a bank account hovering just above zero.The approachability and enjoyability of this novel is not based on the fact that it's glitzy or set in New York or filled with drama and scandal - that has been done, to varying levels of success, by other authors. What made this book so enjoyable was the fact that the main character was real, honest about his vanities and shortcomings, and in the end decided that being a good person and doing the right thing for his friends, family and self, brought him the happiness that everything else had not.(Side note: for those of you who read and enjoyed Bart Yates' "Leave Myself Behind," the main character in this book reminds me of a grown up "Noah" - and the fact that Mr. Yates endorses the book on the dust cover should persuade you to read the book!)

Take the Trouble to Read This Book

This riveting first novel takes an unapologetic look at the first post-Yale year in the life of cute twenty two year old Toby Griffin, an insecure gay man dealing with the pressures and demands of big city existence. Success in ?The Big Apple? is the goal here, and upon graduation, Toby joins the rest of the migrating Ivy League masses determined to find it. Toby, a child of privilege originally from San Francisco, is a struggling writer with dreams of Oscar winning screenplays and world-wide recognition. He also fantasizes about ?hooking up? with the perfect guy and living in domestic bliss. However, if he doesn?t achieve these goals ?like right now?, he is sure he will be perceived as a total failure by the very society he so desperately wants to succeed in. Inevitably, comparisons are bound to be made concerning, THE TROUBLE BOY and, SEX AND THE CITY, but I am more readily reminded of Tom Wolfe?s brilliant, THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES. The portraits painted of ?the high-living capital of the world? by both these books, while certainly different in scope, are not only spot-on, but fascinating to look at. THE TROUBLE BOY, beautifully integrates human geed and the need for success, with all the insecurities inherent in being extremely young and career driven. The young men and women here walk a very fine line between what they want to accomplish, and what they have to do to accomplish it. Integrity still has a place in this fast paced world, but quite often these players have their blinders on to it. This wonderful ?slice of life? piece of fiction is full of candid observations and truths about big city life and aspirations. While the book is painstakingly realistic, it still remains blatantly hopeful.

A REALLY SOLID DEBUT

Stumbled upon it, didn't know anything about it, but ended up devouring it in one night. Exciting, well-paced, frequently clever. Looking forward to more from the author.