Works by
Salvatore Sapienza
(Writer)

Seventy Times Seven (2006) -- Nominated 2006 Lambda Literary Gay Men's Debut Fiction Awards
Seventy Times Seven is a poignant, sexy, funny, and romantic novel set in the early 1990s about a young man's struggle to integrate his religious beliefs with his sexual desires. The gap between sexuality and spirituality is punctuated throughout the novel with quotes from the Scripture, and from song lyrics from Prince and Madonna, artists who merged the two worlds in provocative and groundbreaking fashion. Vito struggles too, with the idealism that drives his desire to change the archaic ways of the Catholic Church and its views on AIDS and homosexuality.

An excerpt from Seventy Times Seven: "Come on, let's go in," Tim implored outside the Christopher Street video store. "It'll be a riot. I know you're a Brother, but you don't have to do anything, just watch. But, whatever you do, don't make me laugh. They're hardcore in there."

Tim has always been able to persuade me to take risks. He took me into my first gay bar, Uncle Charlie's in the Village, when I was seventeen years old (the legal drinking age in New York was eighteen at the time, so we didn't look out of place). Two years later, we snorted coke off of his Barney's credit card in the bathroom of the Roxy. He later was a part of my first threesome experience with some guy we met at the Spike. There was one risk, however, that Tim was unsuccessful in persuading me to take, and that was leaving religious life. Taking me into the video store that night required little effort on his part.

Sal Sapienza's first novel, Seventy Times Seven, is an entertaining and enlightening look at the struggle many gay men experience as their try to reconcile their religion with their sexual natures.

Sitting Shiva (In progress)