KEY POINTS:
The old saying goes "you are not a man until you have had a man", so it's fitting and proper that Bernard Cummings chose to use the phrase as the title to his new romance novel, which is set against the backdrop of hard-core prison sex.
Released to coincide with Valentine's Day, You're Not a Man Until You've Had a Man is set in a fictitious minimum security male prison, just out of Huntly.
Based loosely on a true story and written very much in the style of Charlotte Bronte, the story tells of five intersecting love triangles made up of love-deprived prisoners and overweight but under-sexed guards.
The main character, Percy McBride, has been imprisoned for insurance fraud and is sentenced to spend the next four years behind bars.
As he is quite clearly guilty of the crime, author Cummings wastes no time with sub plots involving idealistic attorneys and private investigators trying to prove his innocence. Instead, he cuts right to the chase, to the moment where he is raped in the showers early on his first day.
This is a pivotal moment in the story and we are still only less than half way down the first page.
Percy must make a choice between fighting love and embracing it and, by the end of the shower scene, we gather that he has probably chosen to embrace it.
Other romantic dalliances follow as our hero becomes intimate with the other more hardened prisoners, some prison guards, the warden, and briefly with a visiting priest.
After personally requesting not to get parole, Percy serves his full sentence in prison.
It is clear from this decision that Percy feels more comfortable and satisfied behind bars than out in the "real" world.
His romance with car converter Ray Cheeseman blossoms, but without giving too much away, they are destined never to be together, certainly not until the sequel, if there is one.
"Until you have love you can never be free. So your honour, you can give me back my freedom today but if I have not love, my freedom is worthless for I will never be free without love."
Percy spoke these powerful words at his second parole hearing and it is perhaps this moment that best captures what this saga is all about.
Percy would rather live like a love bird imprisoned in a cage than have his freedom in a world where true love was so elusive in the past.
At only 65 pages and with a size 14 font this book is a relatively easy read and, much like one of my columns, is very hard to put down once you have picked it up.
It borrows a lot from the success of Brokeback Mountain but in many ways it goes further.
For one thing there are more than just two characters engaging in prison love at any one time.
On the other hand this novel does have its weaknesses.
Cummings has a tendency to use the word "squeal" quite a lot and he can be guilty of over using the exclamation mark - on one page alone I counted 47 - and as a writer you learn that the dramatic effect is reduced every time you use it.
The storyline is simple and solid but having spent some time in prison in France, I feel I am qualified to deem some elements a little unrealistic.
Granted, this is a minimum security prison but the prisoners seem to be able to enter one another's cells willy-nilly, whenever the storyline needs to be advanced or calls for it.
The shower scenes in the first half of the book were relatively realistic, reminiscent of the The Shawshank Redemption and Escape from Alcatraz, but by page 38 Cummings began to take some liberties by adding unnecessary and unrealistic Jacuzzi and sauna scenes.
There is talk of a one-and-a-half part miniseries in the pipeline, but one wonders whether the producers will be brave enough to be loyal to the source material. Personally, I found it a good holiday read but feel it should best remain in the written form. I am going to give it three stars.
