A rich, character-driven foray into a harrowing time.
A middle-aged gay man pieces his life back together in a romance set against the backdrop of the AIDS crisis of the 1980s.
Thirty-five-year-old New Yorker Gary Gaines’ longtime boyfriend and partner Becker died of a heart attack three years ago, in 1985, and he’s still reeling from the loss. Then he meets a handsome, 22-year-old waiter named Rick, and they begin a torrid, often tumultuous, love affair. In some ways, this is a familiar story: Gary is a jaded urbanite, haunted by the deaths of his friends from AIDS, while Rick is a transplant from the Midwest—“A little town called St. Trier, Minnesota”—and an aspiring singer who fled to the city to realize his dreams. The novel plays out as a clash of generations, exploring a queer relationship following one man who came of age before HIV and another who came of age after its emergence. Ringel impresses with his nuanced depiction of this generational divide; sexual tension combines with jealousy as Rick desires everything that Gary had and lost. After Gary has his own HIV–related scare and loses his job writing reports at a nameless World Trade Center office, he leaves New York, bound for his parents’ home near Tampa Bay, Florida. This adventure lends the novel its dreamy title; when Rick, too, arrives in Florida to visit Gary, the two embark on a quixotic road trip across the state to bury the past and welcome the future. In this novel’s finest hours—often at night, during caustic exchanges between Rick and Gary—it feels like a brilliant stage play, as the verbal sparring smartly highlights queer culture and generational differences. However, the work is far less adept at tackling race-related issues, which it does via relatively flat conversations involving two characters of Japanese descent: Gary’s brother-in-law, Gil Sukigawa, and a new acquaintance, Keiko Miyama. For the most part, though, this is a solid trip that readers won’t regret taking.
A rich, character-driven foray into a harrowing time.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-737-6695-0-0
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Distant Mirror Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A wistfully nostalgic look at endings, beginnings, and loving the people who will always have your back.
Exes pretend they’re still together for the sake of their friends on their annual summer vacation.
Wyn Connor and Harriet Kilpatrick were the perfect couple—until Wyn dumped Harriet for reasons she still doesn’t fully understand. They’ve been part of the same boisterous friend group since college, and they know that their breakup will devastate the others and make things more than a little awkward. So they keep it a secret from their friends and families—in fact, Harriet barely even admits it to herself, focusing instead on her grueling hours as a surgical resident. She’s ready for a vacation at her happy place—the Maine cottage she and her friends visit every summer. But (surprise!) Wyn is there too, and he and Harriet have to share a (very romantic) room and a bed. Telling the truth about their breakup is out of the question, because the cottage is up for sale, and this is the group’s last hurrah. Determined to make sure everyone has the perfect last trip, Harriet and Wyn resolve to fake their relationship for the week. The problem with this plan, of course, is that Harriet still has major feelings for Wyn—feelings that only get stronger as they pretend to be blissfully in love. As always, Henry’s dialogue is sparkling and the banter between characters is snappy and hilarious. Wyn and Harriet’s relationship, shown both in the past and the present, feels achingly real. Their breakup, as well as their complicated relationships with their own families, adds a twinge of melancholy, as do the relatable growing pains of a group of friends whose lives are taking them in different directions.
A wistfully nostalgic look at endings, beginnings, and loving the people who will always have your back.Pub Date: April 25, 2023
ISBN: 9780593441275
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A story of mindfulness and joy in the small routines of love and family.
A harried London woman lives the same day over and over again, with her husband always dying at 10:17 p.m.
Time fragments and collides in this story encompassing the first meeting, marriage, child-rearing, lockdown, and post-lockdown lives of Emma and Dan, a married couple in their early 40s. The first time Dan dies, Emma is a harried literary agent so focused on her work, volunteering, and support of everyone outside her family that she has forgotten the anniversary of her first meeting with Dan and missed the clues that something is very amiss with both of their children and their dog. Dan is crushed that she's forgotten the anniversary—she's the one who suggested they celebrate every year with heartfelt letters to one another. He’s written to her every year since—including the year he moved out because of his grief over losing his mother and his inability to be the parent to his newborn daughter that he should have been. Author Major has told Dan’s story of his and Emma’s lives together, and his love and frustrations with his partner's complexities, through these annual letters. Emma’s story of growth and change is told through her first-person account of living that single day over and over again. Dan always dies, but Emma's experience of her relationship with him and her family changes as she relives every day. Fans of the 1998 movie Sliding Doors will enjoy this book. Experiences of anguish, depression, grief, and anger as well as those of patience, love, acceptance, and peace are all addressed.
A story of mindfulness and joy in the small routines of love and family.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780063239920
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
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