Book Reviews

Book Blurb

From the moment he leaves the Midwest in the early 1950s, Tom Larson is forced to confront his sexual and romantic desires at every turn. His awakening begins in Korea where he has an affair with his commanding officer. On a trip to pre-Castro Havana with his then fiancée, he embarks on a star-crossed romance with a young Cuban zealot. In Los Angeles, during the life-altering summer of 1969, Tom, now a successful film/TV writer, is consumed by shame by his unrequited love for Junior Willis, a handsome young man who taunts him with vivid tales of heterosexual prowess. Tom's tortured journey from self-loathing to self-acceptance and happiness mirrors the slow but steady evolution of gay consciousness from the post-War War II years to Stonewall. But when he finally stops questioning his nature and his yearning for affection, love finds its way to Tom's doorstep.

 

Book Review

In an interesting mix between fiction and what could easily be a biography that covers about twenty years of a gay man’s life, ‘Junior Willis’ is the story of Tom confronting his sexual identity in a time before Stonewall (1969). Homosexuality was somewhere between unacceptable and despised by any member of the “moral majority”, not to mention illegal, and Tom finds himself battling his nature for many years. It is an honest account of what those times must have felt like to a man who had no role models, no hope for the intimacy and love he craves, and not even an inkling that marriage equality would one day be a topic discussed openly by the mass media.

Different from a biography, this novella gave me a front row seat to Tom’s emotions, fears, and hopes as he lives through his first relationship with a superior officer, then gets posted to Korea, and follows it by attempting a “normal” life by dating women, His slow evolution toward recognizing that will never lead anywhere for him leads to Tom resigning himself to furtive encounters and brief interludes with men whose expectations are like his – no strings attached.

When love finally finds Tom, in a completely unexpected way, he fights it tooth and nail. After all, Junior Willis used to be the kid who mowed his lawn, so how come Tom suddenly feels way more for him than he should? The laid-back, almost factual narrative of their slowly budding relationship pulled me in, and the lack of overly emotional outbursts made this story feel all the more real to me. Tom is a quiet guy, has learned to keep his feelings close to his heart, and that is exactly how he acts and reacts when Junior Willis makes his move. Tom’s feelings are no less deep for his lack of exuberance, but his way of dealing with them is entirely different from Junior’s, who is almost twenty years younger and has far fewer hang-ups.

If you enjoy reading about men who lived in the past and want to know why they acted the way they did, if you like well-written, quiet stories that have a wealth of emotions bubbling right under the surface, and if you’re looking for a read that is an intensely fascinating character study as well as a wonderful, if necessarily subdued, love story, then you will probably like this novella.

 

 

 

 

DISCLAIMER: Books reviewed on this site were usually provided at no cost by the publisher or author. This book has been provided by Bold Strokes Books for the purpose of a review.

Additional Information

Format	ebook
Length	NovellaNovella, 109 pages/29000 words
Heat Level
Publication Date	01-May-2014
Price	$2.99 ebook
Buy Link	http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com/9781626391659e.html