REVIEWS

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Thank you for gifting that anthology about marginalized and struggling people from the Ohio Writers' Association, Should This Book Be Banned?  I got quite caught up in your contribution, "Thunder and Ice".  Your ability to imagine and sympathize with the psyches and circumstances of two people whose lives are compromised by poverty and drug addiction is quite arresting--it puts me in mind of Charles Dickens' ability to do so with the urban poor of his day.  You packed so much into just a few pages.  The great irony of the story is that Will and Bobby are not really bad people, and it would seem that Elma, the retired, experienced nurse, senses this too.  The surprise ending of Will Beesom slyly pick-pocketing the old woman who had been their benefactor was shocking, but I knew he did it out of love for his partner, for whom it seems Will is the strong one and caretaker.  The in-the-moment, in media res narrative full of understated emotional intensity and psychological inference reminds me of the short stories of Guy De Maupassant, who also is good at winning his readers' sympathies for the marginalized and outcast.  Though you employ a brisk, economic style, you still make it possible for the reader to develop sympathy for the love shared between the homosexual couple, the expression of which is the same as that felt between two heterosexual people who truly love one another.  Will Beesom desires always that his partner be safe and sound, and he will do whatever he can (within his limited means and random opportunities) to make that possible.  What I came away with is a mood of reflection on the domino-effect of marginalization, which may or may not be the reasons for your own characters' plight: a person is not accepted socially by mainstream society (in this case because of inborn sexual preference) and being driven to the societal margin, their options are fewer, their fear is greater, and one choice follows another into a life they might not have freely chosen--and sometimes the places where social refuge is sought are not always benign (or at least, not wholly so).  One can tell that Will would like to have a wholesome existence for himself and his partner Bobby, but he has gone down this road of enslavement to addiction, and he is reduced to survival.  His one jewel is that he has someone to love and to take care of.  Holding on to that, he still preserves a shred of his inmost humanity.

--Todd Bastin