It's the last day of May. It occurs to me that we're just past the mid-point of this eighth of the year, and we're closer to the Summer Solstice than the May-Day past. The poppies, yellow irises, and foxgloves are blooming. I can hear the hummingbirds zipping around somewhere.
It's slowly dawning on me that, as of three days ago, I'm now fully vaccinated against COVID-19. It feels so weird. On one hand, the CDC says I can do a whole lot without a mask, like go to the dog park. On the other hand, it feels like going through an airlock without a space suit without one. Stores and work are still requiring them, so it's not like I wont be completely maskless anytime soon.
I've just finished reading, "Into This River I Drown," by TJ Klune. Although I knew it was queer-friendly didn't realize it was a Lambda Literary Winner for Best Gay Romance. It reminded me of Susan Trott's "Sightings," only with a kind of Iron John emphasis on fathers, and hunky gay angel sex scenes sprinkled throughout.
It started out like a memoir, turned into a mystery/crime story, and by the end turned into a meditation on fathers, faith, love, and sacrifice. The whole idea that love = sacrifice challenged me because it felt Old-Testament-Abraham-and-Issac, but it was consistent within the framework of the book's "my boyfriend/lover is the town's guardian angel" premiss. (I would have preferred love = a gift, and sacrifice = a choice to not do something in order to do something else, but that's my preference.)
The writing was excellent, although I did notice some of the romance tropes driving the main character, Benji's, decision making process -- he'd get mad at the drop of a hat and then fight with Cal, his angel lover, for what seemed like plot-driven reasons. Also, there were romance genre moments of "I'm just a small-town, 21 year old mechanic; why would a 200 year old red-haired, hirsute, muscular, well-endowed, angel (with perpetual stubble) ever want me?" On one hand, not having them would have given the book a wish-fulfillment-porn feel; but on the other hand, it felt like Benji picked up the romance-genre equivalent of the idiot-ball at various times.
The memoir feel gave Benji, the narrator, a way to go back and forth between the past and the present, effectively giving him a limited-omniscient POV. It also enabled Klune to weave themes and phrases into the narrative that had quick pay-offs for the reader without having to start the story with Benji's parents' childhoods.
I should read sections of it again and look more closely at the mechanics of the story.
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