Torch Song
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| Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Torch Song |
| Author(s): | Courtney Gray |
| Date(s): | 1995 |
| Length: | |
| Genre(s): | slash |
| Fandom(s): | The Professionals |
| Relationship(s): | Bodie/Doyle |
| External Links: | |
| online here | |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Torch Song is a Bodie/Doyle story by Courtney Gray.
It was published in No Holds Barred #10 and is online.
Reactions and Reviews
Undercover to investigate a nightclub owner, Bodie is startled when the woman in question returns from a trip to Manchester with a new blues singer for the club: A man called Ray Doyle, who is also her new husband. Having met Doyle and become his lover two years previously on another op, Bodie had abandoned Doyle when the job was over. As Bodie and Doyle work through their personal problems--the mutual attraction neither can deny nor control--the present operation takes various twists and turns around them. Inspired by the movie Gilda, this story's one of the best of the AUs featuring Doyle as an arty sort, and I always enjoy it. It also offers a rounded depiction of the woman, who is invested with her own history and complexity, far from being just a cypher. [1]
Borrow, don't buy, this zine for the Courtney Gray novella, and skim/skip the rest.... "Torch Song", an AU novella with Doyle as a singer, based on the movie "Gilda", which I've not seen. Better written than anything else in the zine, but still disappointing. Maybe the plot and characters would make more sense to me if I'd seen the movie, but as it stands, the story doesn't do a good enough job of justifying the characters' motivations. The villain of the piece is particularly unbelievable, and there were many questions left unanswered. My biggest problem, though, was with the LL/AT&P scenario. B&D knew each other a couple years before, and had a relationship. We learn that they fought a lot. We never really learn why. We learn that the physical attraction between them is still there. But we never learn what *else* it is, beyond the good sex, that brings them together and sustains the relationship. Once again, the past relationship is used as a shorthand "explanation" for why these guys want to get together again, and once again, the *initial* attraction is never fully developed. So we are left scratching our heads at the end, thinking, "Well, okay, here it is a couple years later, and they still want each other. But *why*?" And I couldn't answer that. [2]
References
- ^ 2010, comments by istia, prosrecs. Entries tagged with author: courtney gray, Archived version
- ^ The editor notes that immediately after this review was posted on Virgule-L Alexfandra's comments on Bodie's dialogue in Gloria Lancaster's "You Dancing? You Asking?" were immediately rebutted by a Pros fan from Liverpool. Source: Catalenamara's personal notes, accessed February 17, 2012.