Review of ​Henry Henry by Allen Bratton

​Henry Henry by Allen Bratton is a novel about an heir, Hal Lancaster, who’s life has stagnated. After his mother died, his father, Henry, plans to remarry a French woman. Hal is the oldest son of the Lancasters and is set to inherit his father’s wealth and plots, though a dark secret between the two pushes Hal to use cocaine and keep everyone at arm’s length. This dark secret is that, starting at the age of thirteen, Henry sexually assaulted Hal which became a continuous thing even into Hal’s adulthood. All the while, Hal’s love life mostly consists of hook ups with an old actor, Poins, until Hal is shot in the face by his rival, Percy, at a shooting range. They kick off a love affair which burns hot, in part because Hal hasn’t fully gotten rid of his Catholic guilt, and for another his father’s abuse stays over him like a cloud. Hal attends parties and finds himself falling further and further down into addiction, while his father continues to abuse him whenever he is called. Though, through the understanding of what happened to Henry’s cousin, Richard, begins to kick-start Hal’s (not transformation, but possible retribution). One night, Hal tells Percy half the story, that someone abused him, which makes Percy attend Henry’s wedding and shout that Hal had been abused. Henry worries that Hal has told Percy everything, so sends him away to their other property. From there, Hal decides to get the full story of what happened to Richard, and so makes his way to Richard’s old lover, Edward. At Edward’s house, he tells the story of how Richard died from AIDS and that he was marked a pariah in the family and thus wasn’t buried in the same graveyard as the rest of the Lancasters. Henry, possibly worried he’d be found out, takes a lot of pills and drinks a lot of alcohol, and calls Hal to tell him to come over. Hal follows his directions, and arrives to his father passed out on the floor with his scabs are bloody. Hal cares for Henry and brings him back to health. Afterward, Hal decides to do Richard justice and returns to Henry with paperwork to get Richard’s body moved. In the end, Hal and his sister walk through the cemetery and then the old Lancaster Castle, thinking about how Richard’s legacy was returned to him.
 
The novel, as referenced in its name, provides a modern queering of Henry V’s youth. What is striking, and the most horrifying is Henry’s abuse to his son, which doesn’t necessarily seem to be sexually motivated, but rather power motivated. And that the whole time, Hal feels that it’s his fault, but doesn’t stop it even though in his adulthood he could. This type of relinquishing power also follows in Hal’s sexual relationship to Percy. Though, the revealing and understand of Richard’s story gives Hal a charge to change his own life. While it’s not specifically shown, the way Hal gets Henry to sign the paperwork for moving Richard’s body implies that his rejected his father’s narrative that Richard was a terrible man. It’s a fascinating read that left me wondering how Hal would make a new life and if he’d keep his past tucked away.
 
Final Rating: 4.5/5