​Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami is a novel about a fifteen-year-old boy, Kafka Tamura, who has become fed up with his life and his father in Tokyo, so he runs away. While he doesn’t know where he plans on ending up, along the way he meets a girl, Sakura, on the bus. One night, when he comes to and finds blood on his shirt, he calls up Sakura to ask for help in trying to figure out what happened. Eventually, Kafka finds a library in Takamatsu where he meets the assistant, Oshima, and the main librarian, Miss Saeki. Because Kafka is worried that he killed someone, he tries to lay low at the library. Miss Saeki is an elusive woman who had lost the love of her life when she was younger and was stuck in time, while it’s later revealed that Oshima is trans. Kafka stays at the library, going back and forth from his hotel until Oshima offers a room in the library for him. As the room is getting prepared, Oshima takes Kafka to his family’s old cabin with a forest that two soldiers had once gotten lost in. Then, when Kafka assists Oshima in his library duties and sleeps, on some nights a ghost of a young Miss Saeki sits in the room gazing at a painting. Miss Saeki had once been a singer, producing only one song, from the time her love went off to university, soon to be killed. She had disappeared for some time, which was when Kafka believe that her and his father had him before she ran away with his sister. Eventually, Kafka has sex with both the young Miss Saeki and the older Miss Saeki, falling in love with her. When Kafka learns that the police are after him due to his father’s death, Oshima sends him back to the cabin. At the cabin, Kafka decides to walk into the forest so far that he meets the soldiers that were lost. It turns out they were guarding an entrance to a town that seemed to be in the spiritual world. Upon arriving in the town, Kafka meets both Miss Saeki’s, with the older one telling him he needed to leave before the entrance closed. So with a torn heart, Kafka leaves and returns to the library, a new man, and decides to return back home. The whole time Kafka remembers what his father had said to him, how he would kill his father and sleep with his mother and sister. All of which seemed to come true.
 
In addition to Kafka, a second storyline emerges with an older man, Mr. Nakata, who has both lost his memory and is mentally challenged. This was due to an event when he was a child where he fell unconscious for three weeks on top of a hill during a school field trip picking mushrooms. After he woke up, Mr. Nagata was different and could never achieve the goals that his family set out for him. Though, the one thing he could do was talk to cats, which he uses to look for a missing cat called Goma. Along the way Mr. Nakata meets other cats who tell him that Goma may have been kidnapped. It’s only when a dog leads Mr. Nagata to a man called Johnnie Walker where he learns that the cats are being killed and their hearts eaten to create a flute that controls living beings. Johnnie Walker goads Mr. Nakata to kill him, though Mr. Nakata is unwilling until one of the friendly cats is about to be killed. Mr. Nakata then stabs the man with a knife, saving Goma and the other cats. However, it turns out that Johnnie Walker is Kafka’s father, which means that Mr. Nakata must leave Tokyo to evade. And while he did tell the police, they didn’t believe him. Along the way out of Tokyo, Mr. Nakata makes fish and leeches fall out of the sky, eventually meeting up with a trucker named Hoshino. They get along well and while Mr. Nakata doesn’t know where he’s supposed to go, they drive to Takamatsu where Mr. Nakata realizes he must find the entrance stone. They take a few days to look for it, and not until a concept called Colonel Sanders points Hoshino in the right direction, do they find it and open it. From there, Mr. Nakata continues to search for what he needs to complete, and only finds it at the library where Kafka had stayed. When they talk with Miss Saeki, Mr. Nakata realizes that she’s the one that he needs to talk to. She enlists Mr. Nakata to burn her life’s writing, all her memories, before she passes away. That day, as Mr. Nakata and Hoshino are back at their apartment, Mr. Nakata dies and it’s up to Hoshino to close the entrance. The two days after, a black cat tells Hoshino he must kill it before it can reach the entrance stone or else. Late at night, Hoshino finds out what it is, which is a white mucous thing that climbs out of Mr. Nakata’s dead mouth. Hoshino closes the entrance stone, kills the thing, and eventually makes his return back to his job.
 
Murakami weaves so many fantastical and magical things into the modern world it feels truly surreal. There are characters that take on the faces of brands, talking cats, and ghost sex. The novel also isn’t afraid to break form as in the use of interviews for Mr. Nakata’s unconsciousness, the use of the boy named Crow as Kafka’s inner voice/strength, or when the narrative switches to a second person POV during the intimate moments with Miss Saeki. The taboo nature of the sex between mother and son is explicitly referred to when Kafka reveals the curse his father put on him when talking to Oshima, which made the narrative all the more aware of itself. Because Kafka is initially horror-stricken with this curse and the inevitability of it being played out speaks to the way destiny and fate are referred to in the novel. And while I’m not trans, it felt that the reveal of Oshima only worked to deepen his character rather than him being used as a prop. In part, because Kafka is a boy, the language around women does seem a little misogynistic, though makes sense for his character. And while there weren’t definitive answers to if Kafka and/or Mr. Nakata killed Kafka’s father, why the kids in the forest went unconscious, if Kafka’s father was also Johnnie Walker, or if the town was a spiritual middle world, I felt satisfied with leaving those questions unanswered.
 
Final Rating: 5/5

​Small Wars Manual by Chris Santiago is a collection of poems that upends the Small Wars Manual published by the USMC through erasure. These poems are about the history of America invading the Philippines, the lives of Black soldiers, and the speaker’s understanding of war as a child. There were quite a few poems that I liked, in particular, ‘1.2’, ‘Boondock Suite’, ‘6.4’, ‘3.3’, ‘Hitler Moves East’, ’11.1’, ‘Golden Age’, and ’14.1’. Though, ‘Hitler Moves East’ with its imagery of the brothers playing with toy soldiers and their return to their childhood home in search of their toys felt powerful in how it describes a fascination and then a disgust of war. I was fascinated with how this collection plays with and rewrites a history that America has tried to hide. And in a way, the form of erasure works to take back the voice of America’s victims.
 
Final Rating: 5/5  

​Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte is collection of stories steeped in online subcultures, sexuality, and irony. The novel charts the lives of people spiraling into the alt-right pipeline, becoming abusers, repressing and then engaging in their sexuality, and humorously nodding to online conspiracy theories. I really enjoyed all the stories, though in particular, two stood out as the heavyweights, ‘Ahegao, or, The Ballad of Sexual Repression’ and ‘Main Character’. ‘Ahehao’ is about a closeted gay Taiwanese American, Kant, who’s repression manifests in the desire of sexual degradation in gay hentai. The story follows Kant as he first comes out to his friends and family through an email, and begins to explore dating and relationships in his mid-thirties. However, when he starts to date another man, Julian, he is reluctant to have sex due to his worry that he can’t keep his desires at bay. Eventually, they have a falling out and Kant becomes consumed by trying to get an actor to film a video that includes all of his sexual fantasies. But when he sends the email, he realizes it wasn’t sent to the adult actor, but instead to the list of friends and family he came out to. ‘Main Character’ follows the life of “Bee” who abhors the idea of labels on race, gender, and sexuality so much so that it gets Bee into trouble at their college co-op. Eventually, Bee turns to the internet to satiate their desires to “stir the pot”, where they confess in a post that they created thousands of bot accounts to wreak havoc and create discourse, all while their mother is dying of cancer. However, the story itself notes that what Bee describes is really an AI-generated story and none of it was true. The story then takes a step back, noting the theories of who Bee is and in one theory, lists Tony Tulathimutte as the originator of the Bee post.
 
Tulathimutte is a genius at metafiction, nihilism, and humor in his stories which made me feel completely wrapped up in their dramas. ‘Main Character’ itself has so many twists and turns in its narrative that I was left astounded. I did have one small gripe, which was the ending of the first story, ‘The Feminist’. In it, the main character grows up going to school with mostly girls, so assimilates into the identity of a true “feminist”, and what I assume what the internet would call a “Nice Guy”. As the story continues, he is continually rejected by women due to his “feminist” performances, eventually leading him down into the “red pilled” world of incels and the alt-right. The last scene showcases his metamorphosis as he enters a restaurant planning to shoot it up. The ending felt off because, as a reader, I’d gotten enough clues to understand who the character was and his descent into radicalization, so the payoff of his actions felt cheap and too expected. In going with Tulathimutte’s theme of the use of the internet and slightly experimental forms, I wished it went in a different direction (i.e. manifesto). However, that is the only small problem I had with the collection, and was completely entranced the rest of the time.
 
Final Rating: 5/5

​The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe is a novel about an entomologist who goes to the desert in search of a beetle. However, when he arrives to the desert, and there are no insects in sight, he eventually comes upon a village that has burrowed holes into the sand where their homes sit. The man asks for a place to stay, and is brought down into one of the holes, where a woman about his age lives. Though, while the man intends to leave the following day, the woman and the village intend to keep him far longer. Every night, the woman digs up the sand that has settled on the ground, where it is pulled up by other villagers, so that they won’t be buried. It’s a constant and unrelenting task that consumes the woman’s time. The man, having realized he’s stuck in the hole with the woman, tries to escape. First by trying to climb the steep walls, then by trying to dig out the sand so that it slopes more easily. All of his attempts fail, and gets him injured, where the woman cares for him for a few days. Thus, their life follows this routine, with the man trying to bide his time for an opening. Then, about two months in, he ties up the woman and tries to use her as his prisoner, pleading with the other villagers taking up the sand that she will die if he isn’t let out. Though, they don’t head his word. His final attempt at escape comes when he drugs the woman with sake and medicine, tying anything he can find into a rope where the ladders are anchored. When he’s successful in hooking his grappling, the man flees from the hole to wait on the outskirts of the village where he can get to the highway. But as he walks, he realizes he’s hit the center of the village, where he runs and gets caught in quicksand. The villagers help him from the quicksand, but throw him back in the hole with the woman. Then, their life returns to what it had been: digging the sand, in addition to falling in love. The thought of escape eventually falls away, and when the woman gets pregnant and is taken to the hospital while the villagers left the ladder in the hole, the man doesn’t leave.
 
Abe is a master at crafting stories that have elements of strangeness in them. The village that has burrowed their homes into the sand, and now have an endless task before them of digging the sand out, is such an odd but interesting setting. Early on, the man thinks of ways that would stop them from having to dig, but it soon becomes apparent that their perpetual lives are ones the village is not interesting in changing. To me, it can read as an allegory in which tradition, no matter how illogical, becomes the facet for which societies create and sustain meaning. And with the man’s continual attempts to escape, the ending becomes a surprise when he doesn’t immediately book it. In a way, he has found comfort in the woman, the sand, such that he’s lulled into the routine. I also was fully immersed into the minutia of the man’s life, of how the sand must be delt with, how it settles everywhere, and his dwindling hope of ever truly escaping. Abe sets us up in the beginning with the knowledge that the man will have been missing for seven years (and presumably longer), which sets the tone for all the man’s attempts. We know that he doesn’t return for at least seven years, while the story follows the first few months of his life in the hole. Thus, signaling to the reader that none of the man’s attempts were ever successful even as they’re read in the moment. It was a truly weird, but fun read.
 
Final Rating: 5/5

​The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is a novel about a young man whose painted portrait displays the age and sin of Dorian, while he stays as youthful as ever. The painter, Basil Hallward, sets his eyes upon Dorian at a party and finds the soul of his art in him. So he decides to paint Dorian. The painter’s friend, Lord Henry, accompanies the both of them during a session, essentially telling Dorian that he is young and that he needs to experience pleasure rather than care about anything else. Once the portrait is done, it’s so beautiful, Dorian cries and when Basil says he can destroy it, Dorian prays that he stay as young and pretty as what the portrait captured. Thus, Dorian takes the portrait home and displays it while he goes about his life. Upon Lord Henry’s suggestion of experiencing pleasures, Dorian attends a play where the actress, Sybil Vane, stars. Dorian falls in love with her, in large part to the talent of her acting. Every night he goes to her afterward, and after a few weeks the two are engaged to marry. Lord Henry is skeptical of Sybil because he believes marriage is not what it’s cracked up to be. Dorian tells Lord Henry and Basil that if they were to see her plays, they’d understand why he wants to marry her. So all three attend a show where Sybil plays Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, but she does so terribly, Basil, Lord Henry, and half of the audience leave. By the end of the show, Dorian is so disgusted and has fallen out of love with Sybil that he tells her as much after. She’s heartbroken when he leaves. Later that night, Sybil kills herself over love. Back at his home, Dorian gazes at the portrait and notices the mouth has turned slightly grotesque. The next day when Dorian hears the news from Lord Henry, he was just about to go back on his word with a letter to marry Sybil. Dorian then finds himself unharmed by the whole ordeal and decides that he can do whatever he wants. For eighteen years, Dorian buys all the things he desires, goes to (I assume) brothels, drug dens, and makes other people’s lives spiral. All the while, the portrait becomes absolutely horrid. Then, Basil confronts Dorian about the rumors outside of his place. Dorian invites him inside and as they discuss, Dorian says that if Basil wanted to see if he truly was what everyone said he was, he’d go upstairs. In the room Dorian has stored the painting, Basil sees it has taken on all of Dorian’s age and bad deeds. As Basil is crying over what Dorian has become, Dorian sees a knife on the desk and slits Basil’s throat. The next day he has his old chemistry friend dispose of the body by blackmailing him. A time passes where he starts to get cravings for opium, so gets a ride an hour away late at night where he goes to a den. He sees the man he’s ruined, and doesn’t want his friend to know he smokes anymore. So he goes down to a wharf where he knows someone else is selling opium. However, Sybil’s younger brother approaches him and threatens he will kill Dorian because he had killed his sister. Though, Dorian says that because it was eighteen years ago, how would it have been possible when he still looked so young. Dorian escapes before Sybil’s brother realizes it was actually him. Later on, when Dorian attends a shooting party, the man he’s with inexplicably shoots Sybil’s brother, the man Dorian had greatly worried about. In the end, Dorian decides to destroy the painting because it has only brought him misdeeds and evil. As he does so, the painting is transformed back into the youthful beautiful man he once was, while the dead Dorian is an old wretched heap.
 
Wilde really made this story sing with the tension of murder, suicide, and Dorians actions. Though, I couldn’t help to read the novel with a queer lens when Dorian is first discussed. “…but it is what Dorian Gray has been to me. The mere visible presence of this lad…The harmony of soul and body!...if you only knew what Dorian Gray is to me!” This is when Basil is talking about why he painted Dorian, and the reader is led to believe that it was purely because Basil saw the distillation of art in Dorian. Though, over and over again, Basil is desperate to paint Dorian, lending a feeling of love that goes far beyond painting. The question of why Dorian hasn’t married, or frankly, has a woman in his life after eighteen years is quite telling, when Lord Henry is still by his side. It also felt like there was a hint to this when Dorian blackmails the chemist alluding to a secret he will reveal if the chemist doesn’t dispose of Basil’s body. The question is, what was in the letter Dorian intended to send if the chemist didn’t do what he was told? At the time, being queer was very likely for someone to be kicked out of high society. So because of the mystery within the letter, it lends itself to this type of reading. This may also explain why Lord Henry feels apathetic towards marriage and goes to Dorian after his divorce.
 
There was a lot to love in this novel, and I felt totally immersed in the extravagant and dark life of Dorian Gray. Which is funny because in the edition that I have, there’s an introduction by Allan Donaldson who seems to be dismissive of the novel. He says, “The Picture of Dorian Gray is not a great novel, and its failings are often the failings of an amateur uncertain of the imaginative atmosphere which his characters must inhabit of they are to remain credible…Nevertheless, the novel survives while other, abstractly better, novels of the period have been forgotten.” I think it just confuses me to have such a lukewarm introduction for the book someone had ostensibly bought. It leaves me wondering why have Allan Donaldson give an introduction in the first place? Regardless of the critique, I really enjoyed Wilde’s scenes, the way he can zoom out eighteen years, the descriptions of people, and the way Dorian is tainted by Lord Henry’s philosophy.
 
Final Rating: 5/5

A Christmas Memory, One Christmas, & The Thanksgiving Visitor by Truman Capote is a collection of three stories, two of which are autobiographical. ‘A Christmas Memory’ is about a young boy and his sixty-year-old friend, Sook, who decide to make fruitcakes to send out to friends and family. Then on Christmas, they give each other kites that they had made. ‘One Christmas’ features the same speaker going to his father’s house in New Orleans for Christmas. The boy doesn’t want to go and when he arrives, learns that Santa isn’t real upon seeing his father set out the presents. He then begs his father for a plane he saw earlier in his visit, so his completely drunk father buys the expensive gift and sends the boy off to return to Alabama. The final story, ‘The Thanksgiving Visitor’ is about the same boy being bullied by another boy, Odd Henderson, and when he tells Sook, she invites Odd Henderson to their Thanksgiving dinner. When Odd arrives and the speaker sees him take Sook’s brooch, he accuses Odd of stealing. Though, his plan goes awry and Sook covers for Odd. The boy, angered by what Sook had said, runs off to their barn, where she eventually joins and comforts him.
 
Capote captures the childlike feelings of nostalgia and conflict in this collection. Each story is rooted in time and place and has this feeling of bittersweetness. There’s love exuding in the relationship between the boy and Sook, fractured at times, but always repaired. It’s succinct, and understands the tenderness of childhood.
 
Final Rating: 5/5

​Fire Exit by Morgan Talty is a novel about a man, Charles, who lives across the river from the Penobscot reservation and tries to reconnect with his daughter, Elizabeth, who doesn’t know he’s her father. Though, because he’s not native, Elizabeth’s mother, Mary, wanted to disguise the fact of Elizabeth’s origin so she could fully embrace her Penobscot identity. The novel follows Charles as he watches Mary and Elizabeth across the river, as he cares for his mother whose memory is slowly fading, and makes friends with Bobby, a man whose drunkenness over takes him. Though when Charles takes his mother to get checked for her twisted ankle, he tells the doctor that she has depression, so is recommended Electroconvulsive Therapy. This is where we meet Elizabeth in her current state who also is getting treated, but only Mary and Charles know her true origins. Then, when Mary finds out Charles plans to tell Elizabeth he’s her father, Mary warns it would be a terrible, world-shattering idea for Elizabeth. Then, during a massive snow storm, Charles decides to leave his mother in search for a missing girl he believes to be Elizabeth. This proves fatal because while Charles finds Elizabeth had taken his gun and sat burning in Charles’s step-father’s home where he rescues her, Charles’s mother is forgotten. Then when Charles recovers from the burns and returns to his mother who has soiled her sheets, he takes care of her before leaving to talk to Elizabeth. At the hospital, Charles tells Elizabeth the truth about him, while forgetting his own mother at home. When he returns the next day, he finds his mother dead in the wet sheets that he’d washed for her. At the funeral, Mary and Elizabeth are there to pay their condolences and provide a possible future for Charles to be in Elizabeth’s life. The novel weaves in other plots about Charles’s childhood friend, Gizos, who was the son of the tribe leader and beaten by his father because he was gay. Though, it was blamed on Charles, which further distanced him from the reservation. Gizos then comes back when his father dies, showing Charles his life as a married man with a son. We also get to see Charles and Mary’s past as kids, the first and only time Charles meets Elizabeth, and how Charles’s step-father’s death could be attributed to him.
 
Talty is a master at crafting narratives that weave in and out of each other, telling stories that impact everything else. I felt the chapter with Gizos being beaten and his father blaming Charles was so raw with the last moment of Gizos shooting into the sky to be so poignant. It’s a novel about family, what secrets we hold to keep our families safe, fatherhood, friendship, and love. A truly remarkable read.
 
Final Rating: 5/5

​We the Animals by Justin Torres is a novel about three brothers who live with an abusive father. The youngest, and the narrator, describes moments where they play around with their mother at the kitchen when they were young, and watch as their father digs a hole and they all go inside it, in addition to other moments. One day, the mother decides to pack up everything and the boys to try and flee the father, but as they hang around the park, the mother can’t bring herself to completely leave so they return home. We get moments of the boys throwing rocks at a neighbor’s house, and the neighbor’s son invites them into his basement where they watch gay porn. Another moment where the father takes the youngest to Niagara Falls, dangles him over the edge, and when they arrive at a museum, the father notes how pretty his son is. All of it comes to a head when the boys are older and the youngest hangs around a bus station restroom hoping to have sex with men. Eventually, as a bus driver asks him where he’s going, he is brought onto the bus where the man touches him. When the youngest arrives home however, his family has found his journal which he’s written down his fantasies. This causes his parents to take him to get institutionalized. At the end, right before they’re about to make him leave their home, his father bathes him while his mother watches, and his brothers sit outside in their truck.
 
Torres writes so succinctly and powerfully that the characters feel so real in their rendition. We get to see the collective feeling of the brothers in the beginning due to the abusiveness of their father, which showcases the brothers splintering in the end of the novel. Its lyrical quality reminds me of Ocean Vuong’s writing which felt completely heartbreaking but also true to the character’s experiences. I particularly felt that the chapter ‘Us Proper’ worked so well with the voice that Torres cultivates. The brothers are brash and violent which is a product of how they were treated by their father. I remember hearing on a Tin House podcast that because he was on a bus, he had to write one of the chapters in his head and memorize it. The novel is short, but every word felt so intentional. I think it’ll be one of those novels I’ll be returning to over and over again.
 
Final Rating: 5/5

​How We Named the Stars by Andrés N. Ordorcia is a novel about a man, Daniel, who comes to terms with his sexuality upon meeting his college roommate in Ithaca, Sam. Sam is a soccer player who doesn’t fit the ordinary understanding of being queer. However, as Daniel and Sam get to know each other, there are signs that Daniel picks up on: being spooned during a camping trip, kisses, stares, and touches that last a little too long for mere friendship. As their freshman year progresses, they run with each other and the tension of Daniel’s love pulls them together. All of Daniel’s friends encourage him to be more forthright with Sam, where they go to a queer party, and eventually Sam invites Daniel out to a party with all the soccer players after he wins their college game. Their will-they-won’t-they continues on until Daniel explains to Sam his feelings for him. Then, they have sex in the last few weeks of the year. However, Sam hasn’t quite understood his sexuality and so near the end of the year, he pulls farther away from Daniel, where he plans to live in a frat house instead of with Daniel. During summer break, Daniel goes to Mexico to bring his grandfather back to America when he receives an email from Sam that he’s not ready to be out and that they should stop seeing each other. This breaks Daniel while he tries to keep up appearances for his grandfather and family in Mexico. At his welcome party, Daniel meets the wealthy caterer, Diego, who falls quickly for him. Diego invites Daniel out that night where Daniel tries to process his feelings for Sam while also trying to handle Diego. Diego and Daniel then go on a trip where they make love and their relationship blossoms, though Daniel’s true feelings lie with Sam. Then, Daniel gets a call from Sam’s mother saying that Sam died in a drunken car accident without a seatbelt. Daniel is so heartbroken that he retracts himself from his family, drinking and sleeping and trying to figure out how he’d be able to live. In an attempt to get him out of his shell, his grandfather talks to him about his uncle, Daniel, who was also gay and died after accidently being shot by his best friend. Diego then reaches out to invite Daniel out, where Diego’s true intentions are revealed where he only wants Daniel and not for Daniel to process his loss. Daniel ditches Diego after they fight where he eventually returns to his grandfather’s house. It takes Daniel an understanding and an opening up to his grandfather for him to start the process of moving on. When Daniel is able to start thinking about the next year, he goes through his emails where he finds Sam’s final email saying he loved him and that it was stupid of him to write the email before. And so, to reconnect with his uncle’s best friend and provide closure to his uncle’s death, Daniel and his grandfather go to his uncle’s best friend. They talk and go to his uncle’s gravesite where all three men try to process life, death, love, and loss.
 
 Ordorcia frames the novel with Daniel writing to Sam after returning for his sophomore year. Essentially he is in the middle of processing his loss by talking to his dead lover, which provides a beautiful and reflective understanding of Daniel and Sam’s relationship. At the beginning of each chapter, there’s also a diary entry we later learn is from Daniel’s uncle describing his feelings for other men and his desire for activism during the AIDs crisis. It’s a truly intense story of first love, how to process death, and a family’s desire to reconnect.
 
Final Rating: 5/5

​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