This is a marvellous book. Just wonderful. It's the story of two best friends Petey (who has a stutter and is different) and Danny who discovers that everywhere he goes, Petey's been there first. Petey is gay, Danny straight. Yet...You know how sometimes a book or a film will enter your mind and the images and characters will never again leave it? Mary Renault's Laurie and Ralph from The Charioteer, King Arthur from Morte d'Arthur (the barge with oar and sail /Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan/That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,/Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood). And countless more, fictional guides to the job of being human, as real to me as anybody I see on the streets; more real, perhaps.
The story isn't about love as 'lurve', but about friendship. It's about how men navigate the more insalubrious reaches of male sexuality and learn to be tender, to love; or rather not to learn--that's inbuilt -- to allow their love to be shown, to set aside some of the more pernicious cultural values our society attaches to maleness so that their inner humanity can be expressed. And because it's about a journey, a metaphorical and internal journey to be sure, but a long and painful journey nonetheless, the change in Danny's character and (to a lesser extent Petey's) comes to grip you tightly and at the end there's nary a dry eye in the house.
I did a longer review here, and I can't emphasize enough to any of you who read this blog that this is a must-read. Beg, borrow or steal a copy. But read it!
