Books: A Keeper By Graham Norton (2019)

“When Elizabeth Keane returns to Ireland after her mother’s death, she’s focused only on saying goodbye to that dark and dismal part of her life. Her childhood home is packed solid with useless junk, her mother’s presence already fading. But within this mess, she discovers a small stash of letters—and ultimately, the truth. Forty years earlier, a young woman stumbles from a remote stone house, the night quiet except for the constant wind that encircles her as she hurries deeper into the darkness away from the cliffs and the sea. She has no sense of where she is going, only that she must keep on.”

Graham Norton’s A Keeper is set in Buncarragh, Ireland, present day and forty years earlier. The duel storylines do gel well together, but it's only while you are reading the book, do you suddenly realize the plot is a bit far-fetched. I had to constantly remind myself that the "before" part was set in the 1970s and not in the 40’s or 50’s. It has an old fashioned feel to it, and, at times, a charming wry sense of humor to it. As a comedian and talk show host, Norton is able to balance some of dry wit with a bizarre pathos of unhinged old woman who could be the cousin to Stephen King’s Annie Wilkes from Misery.

But the book, which tries to be about love, loss, missed chances and old fashioned look at how Irish farmer men put out ads for wives, but it never really gets going to be truly exciting. The present part, the once set in the 21^st Century is by far the most interesting, but then Norton goes a bit creepy with her 17 year-old son getting a thirty-five year old woman –his math tutor- pregnant. While I know the age of consent in the UK is 16, it’s still 18 here in the US. Both Elizabeth and her gay ex-husband Elliot should’ve had the teacher up on statutory rape charges.

As noted, a lot of the book never quite comes together in any believable way, which is frustrating, as Norton can write. But I never got emotionally attached to any the characters, even when Patricia was facing a horrible situation with being held prisoner. In the end, it’s more overtly melodramatic than good drama, though filled with doses of dark humor.   

Books: Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby (2021)

                                                             

“Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid. The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah’s white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss. Derek’s father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed his father was a criminal. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy. Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys.”

Razorblade Tears is an action packed, hard-edged thriller. It’s violent and sometimes disturbing, but it’s also a well written tale of redemption –if you want to view it that way. Because, at times, it was hard to get past some of the “bury your gay” themes (and dumbness of trans character believing that even though she’s treated like shit by her secret lover, she somehow believes that he loves her), especially in horrible ways both Isiah and Derek were murdered (and why they’re killed in such a graphic way). And so you have two homophobic ex-con fathers who only learn “love is love” after their kids are dead and buried. This sort of moralizing becomes tedious after a while, if only because Ike and Buddy Lee are looking for vengeance when they should’ve searched in their hearts for the love they claimed they had for their boys. I mean, both claimed multiple times that they loved them, but both never stopped to ponder what the word meant until it’s too late.

Absolution cannot be handed out like Halloween candy, and it would’ve been great to explore not only Isiah’s and Derek’s love for each other (a triumph of two people who had horrible young lives only to find each other and become successful husbands and fathers themselves), but the women as well –as they’re shortchanged here. But we know where this tale is going to end once Buddy Lee and Ike agree to handle the job the police don’t seem interested in; which I also found interesting. At times it felt like a subplot about why the police are not really investigating the boy’s death was left out. On one hand, you can think that it’s stereotype of cops not caring about a gay couple, but their murders were so violent, so horrible that you can easily see there was more to their deaths. It seems so weird no one on the police force felt really compelled to solve it. So was a subplot taken out or did Cosby not think of it? Also, in the end, it was not too difficult for the men to piece all the puzzle parts together.

So I’m of two minds here, as I was entertained by this book, but felt that Ike and Buddy Lee’s realization that they did love their gay kids, who were married and had a surrogate daughter, came a little too easily, it was too pat. And the less I mention the convenience and coincidence of the ending, the better I’ll feel. Still, I won’t say don’t read Razorblade Tears, because it is well done, but I did feel a bit icky about some of the themes that S.A. Cosby was foisting upon the reader.   

Books: The Guncle By Steven Rowley (2021)

"Patrick, or Gay Uncle Patrick (GUP, for short), has always loved his niece, Maisie, and nephew, Grant. That is, he loves spending time with them when they come out to Palm Springs for weeklong visits, or when he heads home to Connecticut for the holidays. So when tragedy strikes and Patrick finds himself suddenly taking on the role of primary guardian, he is, honestly, overwhelmed. Patrick has no idea what to expect, having spent years barely holding on after the loss of his great love, a somewhat-stalled acting career, and a lifestyle not-so-suited to a six- and a nine-year-old. But when his waggish set of "Guncle Rules" no longer appease Maisie and Grant's parental void, Patrick's eyes are opened to a new sense of responsibility, and the realization that, sometimes, even being larger than life means you're unfailingly human." 

Patrick was once on a sitcom, a Friends-like sounding series that made him a lot of money over a nine year period. But after the death Joe, the love of his life, in a car accident, Patrick flies away from Hollywood to the gay mecca of outer Los Angeles, Palm Springs. Here he can hide from world, locked up in his Midcentury modern home, with all his kitsch, including a Golden Globe. But when his best friend Sara (who is also married to Patrick’s brother Greg) succumbs to cancer, and then Greg admits his long-time drug habit, the ordered things in Patrick’s dull, boring life of endless brunches, parties, and his deep mourning for Joe is upended. Greg is going into a 90 day treatment center near Palm Springs, and has decided that Maisie and Grant should spend that time (it’s summer, of course) with their GUP.

The Guncle is a fun book, with snarky one-liners from Patrick and enduring love for his niece and nephew filled me with nostalgia for when my nieces and nephews were younger. It also filled me with guilt, as Rowley describes the Guncle life I wanted to be. I wanted to be the fun one, the Guncle that these kids came to when the adults were being too much. I failed them pretty much, especially my younger sister’s oldest (who lost his father as teen and who has resented the rest of the family pretty much since).

I was Grant’s age when my Dad died. But unlike Grant, I really had no help dealing with my emotions. My Mom was struggling to keep a roof over her four children’s heads, food in our stomachs, and clothes on our backs. I wanted –now nearing my 60^th- then what I think I still need today, a person to help me navigate my anger at losing a parent so young. Back in the 1960’s, there was no real resources to help a 6 year-old deal with this, only some misguided sayings from my the Catholic Church, which boiled down "to get over it, and move on"

This book deals with death in its own emotional way, with Maisie and Grant trying to cope with their loss (including, in some ways, with their Dad in rehab) and Patrick, who is still dealing with the loss of Joe and now has added Sara. While the books hedges close to Stephen McCauley area of expertise, it’s a delightful novel of love, loss, and how we deal with it. It’s not new, it doesn’t break the mold, but none the less, it’s a great read for summer.

I've been to Palm Springs in the summer, and Rowley hits all the notes on city, including using real locations like restaurants and other tourist spots.  But it's a city that will work your last nerve, with it's nearly endless summer, where you're an early riser to get stuff done before the heat sets in, or a vampire, who lives for the night when the sun goes down and heat subsides to just bearable.

Books: Doctor Who: Legends of Camelot By Jacqueline Rayner (2021)

 

"While investigating a strange energy in Carbury, the Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble are pulled into a different dimension, smashing a giant hole into another world in the process. As the magic of the hidden dimension slowly seeps out, the Doctor and Donna find themselves in Camelot, where a young squire, Arthur, comes to their aid, and when the Doctor is mistaken for Merlin, they are swept up in the glamorous and daring legends of the Knights of the Round Table. But something far more menacing has been awakened. Caught in an ancient battle for power, Donna and the Doctor are sucked into a dangerous game. As each move is made and time spins faster, the Doctor must find a way to seal the rift before an unimaginable power is unleashed and the universe is laid to waste." 

While I grow weary of the many re-telling of Camelot, Jacqueline Rayer is able to put a new spin (even if she borrow’ s some elements of Key of Time sequence from the Classic Series 16th Season) on this YA title where the Doctor confronts King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table. 

What works here is Rayner’s innate ability to capture the friendship and the voices of the Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble. It’s almost like an episode of that era. Like all this type of media –never considered canon- this book also sort of pays tribute to a Seventh Doctor Who story, Battlefield. In that serial from 1989, the Doctor is confronted by the knights of King Arthur's Camelot—which turns out to have existed in another dimension altogether, and been far more technologically advanced than standard Arthurian literature depicts—as its greatest wizard, Merlin. The Doctor is Merlin to them, and we learn that some future incarnation of the Doctor had already met Arthur in his youth and established himself as the basis for the legend of Merlin.   

With Rayner’s take, Legends of Camelot sort of gives us to that future version who claimed to young Arthur he was Merlin. It’s a worthy, often funny, often laugh out loud attempt to fill in a slot within the Doctor Who lore.

Also, as I sat down to do this review, it also occurred to me this book would never end up in any school library in Texas and Florida. Donna was such a wonderful character on the TV series, she was honest and in your face and took no crap from no one. Rayner paints her a bit insecure here, but Donna is a feminist and takes umbrage with idea that “it’s man’s world” and tries to impart more evolving wisdom on the women (and men) within this tale. Ron DeSantis would see this wrong, women should not be commenting on things in classic literature. It’s a sad commentary that in 2022 we have leaders stuck this in parochial view. It’s not “wokeism” that has created this schism, it’s a battle of empathy for all versus those who fear to evolve.