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Offstage
That Thursday, the day he started, was the first day in what felt like forever that I didn't consider what the world would be like without me in it.
From the author of the award-winning 'FAG' and 'Not Just a Boy' comes a story of youthful lust, the agonising ambiguity of a close friendship and the fragile nature of truth. 'Offstage' is the tale of a young man's first love in a sleepy seaside town he is desperate to escape.
From the author of the award-winning 'FAG' and 'Not Just a Boy' comes a story of youthful lust, the agonising ambiguity of a close friendship and the fragile nature of truth. 'Offstage' is the tale of a young man's first love in a sleepy seaside town he is desperate to escape.
122 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 10, 2019
1 person is currently reading
12 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Hill
25 books76 followersJonathan Hill is an author from Manchester, UK.
His work isn’t confined to one genre, but he has already published a number of gay literary fiction books to high critical acclaim. His debut novel 'FAG', a hard-hitting story set in an English boarding school in the 1930s, was named as the overall winner in the Self-Published and Small Press 2014 Book Awards.
He has also penned the hit comedy series of Maureen books, in addition to numerous short stories and 100-word drabbles. Jonathan firmly believes that writing should not only entertain but also enhance and change the way readers view the world.
When he’s not writing and working as a pharmacist, he enjoys painting, photography and going to the theatre.
www.jhillwriter.com
www.fagthenovel.com
His work isn’t confined to one genre, but he has already published a number of gay literary fiction books to high critical acclaim. His debut novel 'FAG', a hard-hitting story set in an English boarding school in the 1930s, was named as the overall winner in the Self-Published and Small Press 2014 Book Awards.
He has also penned the hit comedy series of Maureen books, in addition to numerous short stories and 100-word drabbles. Jonathan firmly believes that writing should not only entertain but also enhance and change the way readers view the world.
When he’s not writing and working as a pharmacist, he enjoys painting, photography and going to the theatre.
www.jhillwriter.com
www.fagthenovel.com
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 2, 2019
A kiss and drunken lips. Is it a close friendship between Daniel and Nathan or the birth of the first love?
Who speaks the truth when youthful lust gets the cold shoulder?
Love cannot be killed. If it cannot be reciprocated it must be endured.
In Offstage Jonathan Hill gets more sexual, more erotic, more sensual, more emotional, more unforgiving, more everything.
More a writer.
I needed a break after reading this story. And a few moments of solitude. Jonathan Hill can do that to you. There lies his brilliancy.
Read him!
BJ
www.bernardjan.com
Who speaks the truth when youthful lust gets the cold shoulder?
Love cannot be killed. If it cannot be reciprocated it must be endured.
In Offstage Jonathan Hill gets more sexual, more erotic, more sensual, more emotional, more unforgiving, more everything.
More a writer.
I needed a break after reading this story. And a few moments of solitude. Jonathan Hill can do that to you. There lies his brilliancy.
Read him!
BJ
www.bernardjan.com
December 23, 2023
Offstage by Jonathan Hill
One of the very few books I have ever read that leaves me shaken and stirred: Offstage is a masterpiece for all sorts of reasons. A short work of just over a hundred pages, it shares with the best folksong that very rare quality of restraint - or rather it is Jonathan Hill that has the quality of restraint, reining himself in from the usual writer's tendency to expose everything in words on the page, and not miss a single detail or explanation of exactly how one event leads to another. He sticks to a tight dramatic form: Prologue, Act One, Interval, Act Two, and Curtain Call. He trusts to the reader's maturity to fill in the gaps, and to make sense of the thrust of the story. In this way the book comes to exist inside us, the reader; it is what we make of it in our own interiority, rather than all being laid out for us and for our admiration on the page.
Beautifully managed, too, is the writing, with, for instance, a recurring image of water that appears variously as the sea, the shower, the toilet, urine and bodily fluids: water in so many of its aspects as supporting, enjoyable, intimate, dangerous, disgusting, and so on, a strong metaphor for relationship. Vivid and accurate description is never allowed to disrupt the tight form Hill has set for himself. This guy is a writer.
There is something of an irony that this restrained expression in the author is also the moving spirit behind the main characters, Daniel and Nathan, whose names we have to wait some time to discover. We know them quite well before we even find out their names, savouring the content before seeing the label. It is what is unsaid that powers the story. Nevertheless, we are introduced to Daniel's tendency to overthink his life to the point where neither he, nor we, know what is real. He meets but does not meet people, as happens explicitly in the Interval. His hopes, his fears, remain largely unexpressed and untested. Such reticence is made psychologically totally convincing by the undemonstrative parents who are quite unable to enjoy, affirm and celebrate Daniel's Truth. They have quite a few things to hide themselves, apparently, and so they condemn him, in turn, to a life of contained anxiety and terror of presenting himself to the world. Hence, Offstage.
The dawning on him of the dangers of this secrecy are the salvation of Daniel: 'Someone I once knew and yet didn't know at all, someone I wouldn't allow myself to know, blinded as I was by what I so dearly wanted from him, and us.'
I loved this book and look forward to reading it again and again, as I am sure there is more subtlety in it to find and enjoy.
March 12, 2019
We all remember our first love. We have all loved someone who didn’t love us. There are so many common themes here that I really felt for Daniel, the narrator of the story. He had the added difficulty that he didn’t know if Nathan, the object of his desire, was gay. The anxiety, the elation, the misinterpretation of simple gestures and words, it’s all in here. There’s also a darkness. Daniel finds himself, initially by mistake, embroiled in something deeper than he knew. The story is beautifully written and the Daniel’s feelings displayed in honest and heartfelt prose. It’s both sad and uplifting. Highly recommended reading.
March 11, 2019
This book sucked me in from the very first page. I even read through my indignation about the way the MC described Matinee theatre-goers! I go in the afternoon, it's more convenient!!
Anyway, that's nothing to do with the book. In it, we follow a young man, living in a sleepy seaside town, who is just coming to terms with his sexuality. A difficult enough time for anyone I'd imagine, but then, one day, a new face appears working alongside him in the theatre as an usher. He is visiting with his Gran and working there for the holidays. There's a spark between them but, as we all know, first love never runs smoothly, especially not in a book! And so begins our hero's journey into his sexual awakening and the highs and lows of it all; the beauty and the seedy.
This was a lovely and very poignant story. It had me laughing and weeping in equal measure as I avidly read on, devouring the book in an afternoon - straight through - it held me captive. I was powerless to put it down.
The writing is beautifully descriptive and lyrical in places. So much so, that I was well able to "see" the action play out in my head as I was reading. Not being a visual reader, this doesn't happen very often but it's lovely when it does. OK, so I could have done without the description of some of the places in the book, but rough and smooth and all that!
And, yes, OK, I did get a bit emotionally invested in the characters. They were so easy to connect with that I took to them straight away and followed each interaction with my heart in my mouth.
Another thing I really loved was the journey back in time with so much that I remember from my own childhood; the phone call screening especially made me cringe! So many things that just brought me closer to the story being told. Love a good memory-link!
All in all, a very pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon hiding from the awful weather. I have a few of this author's books on my TBR and, after thoroughly enjoying this one, I am going to try and squeeze them all in soon.
Anyway, that's nothing to do with the book. In it, we follow a young man, living in a sleepy seaside town, who is just coming to terms with his sexuality. A difficult enough time for anyone I'd imagine, but then, one day, a new face appears working alongside him in the theatre as an usher. He is visiting with his Gran and working there for the holidays. There's a spark between them but, as we all know, first love never runs smoothly, especially not in a book! And so begins our hero's journey into his sexual awakening and the highs and lows of it all; the beauty and the seedy.
This was a lovely and very poignant story. It had me laughing and weeping in equal measure as I avidly read on, devouring the book in an afternoon - straight through - it held me captive. I was powerless to put it down.
The writing is beautifully descriptive and lyrical in places. So much so, that I was well able to "see" the action play out in my head as I was reading. Not being a visual reader, this doesn't happen very often but it's lovely when it does. OK, so I could have done without the description of some of the places in the book, but rough and smooth and all that!
And, yes, OK, I did get a bit emotionally invested in the characters. They were so easy to connect with that I took to them straight away and followed each interaction with my heart in my mouth.
Another thing I really loved was the journey back in time with so much that I remember from my own childhood; the phone call screening especially made me cringe! So many things that just brought me closer to the story being told. Love a good memory-link!
All in all, a very pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon hiding from the awful weather. I have a few of this author's books on my TBR and, after thoroughly enjoying this one, I am going to try and squeeze them all in soon.
February 19, 2020
Offstage
By Jonathan Hill
Published by the author, 2019
Four stars
“If love cannot be reciprocated, it must be endured.”
A short and bittersweet novella about a teenager named Dan who works in a provincial theater as an usher. When a new boy named Nathan joins him in his workplace, his emotions turn from resentment to fascination in short order. Hill’s intent is literary, and while he sometimes gets too caught up in words as art, his emotional targets are clear and well-aimed.
This is not a romance, but it is about romance, and the dangerous illusions that a romantic soul can create that prevent him from seeing reality. Dan is a young man who questions whether or not the world needs him in it, and his friendship with Nathan seems to answer that question in the way he needs it to. In the end, Dan’s delusions are not exactly healthy, but they might save his life.
It is at the very end that Hill finally throws a spotlight on this miniature tragedy and reveals the good that comes from it. To be young and gay – even today – is rarely without pain. Endurance and survival are what matters, and Hill reminds us that even pain and loss can be pathways to happiness.
By Jonathan Hill
Published by the author, 2019
Four stars
“If love cannot be reciprocated, it must be endured.”
A short and bittersweet novella about a teenager named Dan who works in a provincial theater as an usher. When a new boy named Nathan joins him in his workplace, his emotions turn from resentment to fascination in short order. Hill’s intent is literary, and while he sometimes gets too caught up in words as art, his emotional targets are clear and well-aimed.
This is not a romance, but it is about romance, and the dangerous illusions that a romantic soul can create that prevent him from seeing reality. Dan is a young man who questions whether or not the world needs him in it, and his friendship with Nathan seems to answer that question in the way he needs it to. In the end, Dan’s delusions are not exactly healthy, but they might save his life.
It is at the very end that Hill finally throws a spotlight on this miniature tragedy and reveals the good that comes from it. To be young and gay – even today – is rarely without pain. Endurance and survival are what matters, and Hill reminds us that even pain and loss can be pathways to happiness.
July 14, 2019
This is the first time I’ve read anything by this author and if truth be told it’s not something I’d normally read but I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The authors writing style was easy to read, he didn’t explain everything several times like some authors have a tendency to do and he wrote about real issues.
I guess this story is about infatuation rather than love. I mean I do think that a person can be in love with someone even if you’ve only known each other a short period of time, but for me this was more of an infatuation love. Well that’s how I read it as anyhow.
I’d quite happily read more by this author. I think he’s unique and has a way of getting the story across without too much faffing.
I guess this story is about infatuation rather than love. I mean I do think that a person can be in love with someone even if you’ve only known each other a short period of time, but for me this was more of an infatuation love. Well that’s how I read it as anyhow.
I’d quite happily read more by this author. I think he’s unique and has a way of getting the story across without too much faffing.
July 19, 2019
This wasn’t a genre I would normally read but I have to say that I really enjoyed it. The author has a beautiful way with words and Daniel is brought vividly to life. A young man grappling with his sexuality and becoming fixated on Nathan, even though he has no idea if he feels the same way. Throughout this novella Daniel questions whether his interpretation of events is the truth or just his own longing making him see things that just aren’t there. The author leaves it up to the reader but, regardless, Daniel is a very sympathetic character and your heart goes out to him.
Heart tugging but also uplifting.
My thanks to TBConFB for this very sweet tale.
Heart tugging but also uplifting.
My thanks to TBConFB for this very sweet tale.
July 21, 2019
Offstage by Jonathan Hill.
Offstage' is the tale of a young man's first love in a sleepy seaside town he is desperate to escape.
This is beautifully written. I liked Daniel's character. This isnt my usual reading genre but it was different. 4*.
Offstage' is the tale of a young man's first love in a sleepy seaside town he is desperate to escape.
This is beautifully written. I liked Daniel's character. This isnt my usual reading genre but it was different. 4*.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews