"The Trout"

An “All About Eve-style story in which a beautiful cowboy stumbles into a literary career without writing a word.” That’s how Out magazine described “The Trout,” the centerpiece of Stephen Greco’s best-selling book of gay erotica, The Sperm Engine (Green Candy Press, 2002), Following in the tradition of literary provocateurs like John Preston, John Rechy, and Boyd MacDonald, Greco illustrates how people often reveal themselves best during sex—whether through traditional, romantic expressions of love or through the vast variety of “sex sport” and “sex work” that are integral to modern gay life. The Sperm Engine was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in 2003. Here’s the full review from “Stephen Greco delivers a book of stories so steamy it would be easy to mistake The Sperm Engine as cutting-edge porn. But the witty, street-sassy pieces in this smart debut collection defy pat description. In the bulk of these, a brutally frank narrator haunts '90s back-room Manhattan, giving us seemingly autobiographical portraits and observations that read at times like intimate, explicit dispatches. At other times he's strictly literary, even biting. "The Trout" is an All About Eve-style story in which a beautiful cowboy stumbles into a literary career without writing a word. Between this and the breathless, bravura "Men and Their Issues," readers will recognize a writer who ranks with the likes of Andrew Holleran.”