THE BODY SPOKEN

Deaner’s arresting second novel (Where Blue Begins, 1993), in its dreamy way, takes on gender, power, and the frailty of truth. Aboard a train, Hemy Lourde confides to a stranger, “I’ve been living as a man for five years.” Intrigued, the man (who remains nameless) asks her to elaborate, and so begins their conversational journey from New York to Los Angeles. Hemy begins with the tale of her pastoral childhood in the early ’70s: her psychic, elegant mother Bo, her failed playwright father, her two sisters, and her brother Oscar, whom she loves (including in the carnal sense). When Bo built a still and opened a speakeasy, their financial woes abated, until a surprising turn of events forced Hemy to shoot a Mr. Antonovsky in the groin, as their still exploded in the background. When Happy, a shady underworld type, appeared on the scene, the still was rebuilt, though a second explosion, probably a bombing, left Hemy’s family decimated, with her father, Oscar, and little sister Frieda dead, and Bo and older sister Zellie in comas. As the train trip continues, through plains to desert to mountains, Hemy’s story unfolds within a constant mood of sexual tension and exploration; the man who is her continental companion grows convinced that she’s lying, yet he wants to know more anyhow, needs to understand what has brought this beautiful woman to live as a man—and, for her part, Hemy also needs to confess to him. Only toward the end does Deaner falter, when a far too ordinary explanation is given for Hemy’s strange life, and when repetitions diminish the tale’s strength. Oddly compelling, if flawed.