Title: Whisper Alley
Author: Gregory Marcel
Publisher: CitiofBooks, Inc
ISBN: 979-8-89391-331-6
Pages: 198
Genre: Marine Life / Erotic Fiction
Reviewer: Subhrajit Saha
Hollywood Book Reviews
Everett Walters is a newly joined US marine in Naha, located on the southern part of Okinawa Island. We get to experience the unpredictable marine life from the POV of the protagonist Walters. The more the story unfolds, the more mysterious and intriguing the book becomes. From the beginning author Gregory Marcel illustrated the world of Okinawa in a detailed and well elaborated way. Walters has an army background which made his professional life even more sorted from his early days. Whisper Alley starts with Lance Corporal Everett joining the Marine job, as well as exploring his new life as Corporal the protagonist tries to explore the life of Naha. In that way he met his first love on the island, Cameko. With time he explores the girl both physically and mentally and then starts the real problem. Meanwhile, Walters meets another woman in the same place where he found Cameko. Our protagonist decides to explore the brothel kind of place, Whisper Alley, more and that takes his fate in a different direction.
On the other hand, we get to know about his decent and well-to-do professional life including him becoming the star among his colleagues, getting attention from everyone, and so on. Along with digging into the vulnerability of Everett’s mind space, the author decides to give us a brief idea about the dark life of the island. Americans don’t consider Okinawans as a good human being, states people think Okinawans as fraud, conmen, thugs etc. The conversation between Mary and Walters regarding Hiroshima illustrates the equation between state people and Okinawans in a very dark yet truthful tone. Apart from that the commentary on black and white issues and how they should be treated is depicted by the words of our protagonist.
Coming back to the story, in the desire to discover what more Whisper Alley can offer Walters to get involved into the dark world of Naha. Cameko’s urge to escape from the place provides a clear picture about how claustrophobic people feel on the island. Whisper Alley has everything to take you down in life, including liquor, cigarettes, drugs, prostitution, and so on. Overall, you can say Whisper Alley itself is a character that needs to be discussed for a long time.
In addition to the raw and intense world of Naha, Gregory Marcel’s book offers some interesting human equations. Jonah and Monique’s give and take relationship, Madison’s confusing yet fascinating behavior towards her childhood crush, Yuriko’s love for Walters etc. These tangents cannot be decoded in words but make a long-lasting impact on the reader’s mind. Especially shaded characters like Everett and Madison are the assets of Marcel’s book. The fragile and disturbed mindset of these two made the novel fast paced, interesting and gripping. We can feel for both the characters and that’s the success of the author’s character illustration. Additionally, when the genre itself is erotic fiction then you cannot expect it to be a kid’s book, so read it according to that. The detailing in portraying the marine life, townships of Okinawans, brothel life, erotic urges are indeed an extra layer of brilliance from the author. Overall, Whisper Alley is raw, truthful, mystic, sensual, emotional and obviously very honest to the genre and its world making it a highly recommended book.
Recommended for mature readers only. Contains erotic content, language and adult themes.