Review

Notes

• p31 - My greatest terror was ending up alone.
• p35 - I avoided you, so that you couldn’t avoid me.
• p47 - …I decided never to be that vulnerable again, never to feel that panic again, never to depend on anyone else.
• p68 “Are you doing something bad?” I asked, scared. “No, my darling.” Her voice mellowed. “But even when you don’t do bad things, bad things can happen to you.” “Why?” She tried to look soft, but the lines on her forehead didn’t disappear altogether. “This is how it is.”
• p77 - You listened, really listened, gentle eyes taking me in without judgement, making me feel more heard than I knew I could be.
• p113 - (Slightly, but not really, a story spoiler) “Your mother died out of loneliness,” Granny would always repeat, claiming it was because she had never remarried after my father. But I think it was despair that killed her. Having done only things she didn’t believe in, she must have been dead inside for years before her body finally gave up too.
• p168 - “We’re just queuing for a possibility, queuing for something, maybe queuing for nothing.”
• p174 - It hurt to see you like that, to have nothing pass between us.

— # Review

I picked this book up alongside Guibert’s Written in Invisible Ink at the book store a while back, following a drive to read more explicitly gay literature. This is notably more contemporary (2020, compared to Guibert’s stories in that book ranging from ‘77 to ‘88), though it is interesting to see their similarities and differences.

While Guibert’s characters seem full of self-hatred (particularly in his earlier stories), Jedrowski’s protagonist does not really hate himself, but the context of his life. Early in the book he is ashamed, but this seems to pass away and it should not be confused with the reality of fearful living in an intolerant State. Guibert’s characters are sometimes cruisers, horny and looking for a quick fuck from a stranger, but also longing and yearning. The cruising in that book is quick and without ceremony and vague in detail, really. One episode of “cruising” (I almost hesitate to call it that) takes place in Jedrowski’s book, and it is prefaced and followed by rather tender conversation, where anonymity is somewhat shed.

It would be interesting to sit down with these texts and do a closer reading. Jedrowski is writing in 2019/2020 about a fictional person in the early- to mid-80’s in Poland. Guibert’s stories are quite autobiographical and span the same time period in England.

Anyway, enough essay. I liked the book a lot. The writing is quite good for a first time writer, far better than expected. The characters feel real, there is real conflict and moral interrogation. The love is familiar, the longing, fear, anxiety. It all feels true. The sex is written in such a lovely way, feeling positive and not just smut (though, I would not protest it being lower brow). One of my favorite lines, “His ass was powerful.” There are good descriptions of what Jedrowski’s protagonist notices about the people he’s attracted to, the little things, the big things, it is all very good.

I’d recommend this! Quite good.

When finished: - Change status in the frontmatter to published - Copy and paste the full text into Goodreads