The Backlot Gay Book Forum discussion

Don’t Rock the Boardwalk (ABCs of Spellcraft 6)
By Jordan Castillo Price,
Published by JCP Books, 2020
Four stars

The penultimate goofball episode in this series, “Don’t Rock the Boardwalk” is set in the picturesque (i.e. shabby) town of Pinyin Bay, somewhere in a magical America. Dixon Penn, scion of an old but impecunious family of Scriveners (magic spellcrafters), has, along the way, discovered his skills and his quill and his big, taciturn, tattooed boyfriend Yuri (referred to as his grown man friend).

As this series begins to wind down, and our two man-friends are settling into a comfy life in the Penn family home, strange things continue to happen in Pinyin Bay that begin to form a disturbing pattern. When a piece of damaging spellcraft is brought to Dixon’s attention by a mime who performs on the town’s bayside boardwalk, the Scrivener and his Seer have to figure out what’s going on, both to prevent shame from falling on Dixon’s father, and also to stop what appears increasingly to be a sinister plot to hijack the town both Dixon and Yuri call home.

I keep wanting to liken the books in this series to sitcoms from my childhood like “I Love Lucy;” but I realize that I should think of something more recent, like from my kids’ childhood. How about “The Wizards of Waverly Place?” I guess the crucial connection I’m trying to make is the situation comedy aspect of it. Dixon is a ditz and a chatterbox, and until he met Yuri, kind of a trollope (there, the censors will never catch that term!). Yuri, for his part, has had a tough life, as a gay man in Russia and magical to boot, he was misused by various people until rescued by Dixon, who loves him with horny abandon. Yuri is a kind of poignant, noble character, while Dixon is adorable but (to me) irritating.

The book relies on Price’s clever writing and absurd plotting, because one can’t really think too deeply about the actual goings-on in the book, because a lot of it doesn’t bear scrutiny. As a curator (retired), I was particularly charmed by the details of the Shirque mansion, childhood home of Dixon’s frenemy/nemesis Vano Shirque (who, it turns out, Dixon might have underestimated). The greatest pleasure is in the characters, especially Dixon and Yuri, through whose eyes the adventure is seen. All the oddball people bring this oddball place to life, like a freakish Pleasantville, populated by magical versions of the folks we knew in the golden days of TV Land.