If I had read this book up until a few years ago I would have absolutely despised it and had nothing but bad things to say. As it is there ARE mostly bad things to say about Desperate Asylum (and it is most definitely not 'brilliant'), but I cannot deny that Fletcher Flora (a very underrated writer) got some things right and there were times I was reading this I became convinced he must have written under a pen name during his career as a writer. If you are of a certain age (or live in an area that is still very much behind the times in accepting gay people) many parts of Desperate Asylum (especially the self-hatred gay men and women constantly can live with) will ring true for you. If you have been blessed enough or strong enough and have never lived with feelings of intense self-loathing then there really is nothing here that will resonate with you. Desperate Asylum is a never-ending flow of outdated ideas and beliefs and is not at all ready to accept gays or lesbians as anything but abnormal. And it does not help that one of the main characters, Lisa, is a walking, talking stereotype and not at all likable. One thing that kept cycling through my mind as I read this was the thought that even nowadays there are some of us who would desperately do anything not to be gay and yet know that there is no way not to be.
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