​In Tongues by Thomas Grattan is a novel about a gay man, Gordon, who, after being dumped, moves from Minneapolis to New York where he eventually works as a dog walker. He gets by through living at a bar owner’s, Janice’s, place and during his job is brought on as a helper for a wealthy older couple in Brooklyn. The wealthy couple, Philip and Nicola, work as art curators who let Gordon tag along with them. During this time, Gordon has encounters with other men, and at a party, hooks up with Nicola. As Gordon integrates more into Philip’s and Nicola’s lives, he pines over a well-known painter, Pavel. However, Gordon’s introduction into the couple causes some rifts in their relationship, and so on a trip to Germany, Gordon and Philip go alone. There, Gordon and Philip grow closer to each other in a platonic way. Pavel also appears in Germany, but leaves before Gordon can pursue him. On their trip in Germany, 9/11 happens which starts the separating of Gordon from the couple’s life. When they return, and while Philip and Nicola are on a trip, Gordon invites Janice and her friends over to the couple’s house where they perform burlesque. Then, Gordon and Pavel have a relationship while Pavel paints Gordon. All of it comes to a head when word of the party reaches Nicola, who never liked Gordon in the first place. Gordon is fired, his friendship is strained with Janice, and so in a desire to keep what little he has, Gordon travels to meet up with Pavel in Mexico City. However, by that time, Pavel is already in a relationship and was not expecting Gordon to take up his offer of staying. In Mexico City, Gordon receives an email from his father saying that he’s going in for heart surgery, which spurs Gordon to return home. Gordon and his father had never had a good relationship which is slathered in religion. When he returns to Minneapolis, he stays with his father and step-mother, but is rejected once they find out he’s been sleeping with other men. After being kicked out, and living at a friend’s place, Gordon receives a letter from Philip with five thousand dollars. With that, Gordon travels to Brooklyn and picks himself up by working at hospitals, eventually working at an ICU. One day, ten years after their first encounter, Gordon finds Philip succumbing to cancer as a patient. There, they have a final moment together laying in Philip’s hospital bed. At the end and in an effort to repair his friendship after Philip’s death, Gordon calls Janice where they talk about Philip, Janice’s new family, and the small things of New York.
 
Grattan imbues Gordon with a wry and smart sense of humor, often times to a fault of his character. The writing is direct and specific and I found the way it addressed religion, Gordon’s misdeeds, and the way he’s treated to really work. We get to see Gordon continually fail to forge strong and meaningful relationships either with Philip, Pavel, his father, his mother, or Janice. I really loved the sometimes tender, sometimes contentious moments between Gordon and Philip. An utterly raw and drama filled read.
 
Final Rating: 5/5

​A Cold Winter from Idaho by Lawrence Matsuda is a collection of poems detailing his family’s experience during World War II as Japanese Americans were forced to relocate to an internment camps. It follows Matsuda’s childhood in Minidoka as well as reflecting on the crimes America had committed on its citizens during the war. I enjoyed poems such as ‘1942 Nightmare’, ‘Too Young to Remember’, and ‘Arc de Triomphe, 2003 Invasion of Iraq’. Though, as a reader having a base understanding of Japanese American culture, I felt at points the language and images catered to a white audience. Many of the Japanese terms are italicized, which signals to the audience that those words are exotic or different. And in the poem ‘Go Game’, one stanza reads, “Thumps and slaps transform/gohan into mochi,/a gooey white blob,/for the New Year’s Day’s feast.” While technically fine, the poem assumes the reader doesn’t know what mochi is, taking precious space to explain. Another instance can be found in ‘The Noble Thing’ where a line says, “Gaman, ‘endure the unbearable with dignity.’” It’s not that these ideas shouldn’t be mentioned, but rather their desire to be defined within the poem accepts the conceit that the reader doesn’t know these things. And the people who are less likely to know are folks that aren’t Japanese American. Also, there’s a recurring image of samurai that parallels the soldiers of the 442nd, and while I understand this connection, I would’ve liked one with more dimension and a little more complexity. It was an interesting read, however I felt disconnected from the intended audience.
 
Final Rating: 3/5

​Bones Worth Breaking by David Martinez is a memoir about a pair of brothers both struggling with drug addictions, childhood trauma, and the reverberations of living as mixed-race kids. Though, it’s so much more than that. It’s about skateboarding, the brother’s unbreakable bond, Martinez’s LDS mission in Brazil, his marriage, his writing journey, and his brother, Mike’s, death from sepsis due to COVID while in prison. The memoir spans Martinez’s struggles with doing hard drugs which were used to cope with his childhood sexual trauma, strict conservative household, and his bipolar disorder. It’s a deeply personal and important story which shows the divergence of the two brothers bonding over skateboarding and doing drugs, and the difficulties of hiding mental illness and drug abuse. While the whole memoir infuses itself with importance of the brother’s love, I felt the greatest connection when reading Mike’s emails while Martinez is on his mission in Brazil. The pain and knowledge of what is to come for Mike is raw and bleeds in each moment. Martinez writes about a painful and hard life, and I feel now changed because of it.
 
Final Rating: 5/5