AmosL
08-10-2006, 11:09 AM
A BOOK REVIEW
Literary Pride--a gay reading circle
Ford, Michael Thomas, Full Circle, Kensington Press, May, 2006.
Michael Thomas Ford's novel of adolescent lust, unrequited love, messed up friendships and domestic bliss takes place over a fifty year period. It is a powerful story of friends and lovers and of bonds that come full circle. This is the tale of Ned Brummel, a history professor who lives happily with his partner of twelve years in small town America. This happiness takes a turn when he receives a phone call from a friend, Jack, whom he has not heard from in years and who tells him that another friend is very ill and possibly dying. The news shatters Ned's peace and he takes a plane to Chicago. On the way his memory takes him on yet another journey--one that examines the events of his life and the shaping of his world and his relationships with others.
Going back to the 50's and 60's, we are invited into the world of Jack and Ben who found beauty in their love for one another. But college was to change that and that change came by the name of Andy Kowalski. Both men fall for him and fall hard. What follows is a series of secret meetings and betrayals as they hurt, love, mature and heal one another over the course of the following years. We read of their lives in the drugged out days of San Francisco in the seventies. through the advent of AIDS in the eighties to the activism of the nineties and as they live through these periods, their relationships change and grow and reflect the transformation that was happening around them. Now together again as one of them is about to leave the world, they have one last chance to face the past, examine its damage, rejoice in its good memories and embrace their love for each other--a love that withered the supreme test--time.
Without giving away the plot any more than I have, I will say that this is a moving saga of three friends but it is also an unyielding story that celebrates the power of friendship and deep feelings that were able to withstand enormous obstacles-a love that is ultimately the most important thing that one can share.
I have read all of Ford's books up until now but none on them (as good as they are) ever engaged me quite the way this one did. I am used to laughing with Ford while this book moved me to the other emotions which I had not experienced in his writing until now. Having experienced the same periods in history and having been there, Full Circle was a "remembrance of times past". It is not often that a book can portray the power of love so that it moves the reader to tears.
Through the three major characters, Ford portrays the gay "every man" having him travel through the history of gay America. And he does so with beautiful prose, with realism and with a heightened sense of emotion. I think one of the things that makes this book so important is that it is not the story of the "twink" generation which we have of late found so much of on bookshelves. Rather it tells of the baby boomers who have now become middle-aged adults. Even though it embraces the "older" generation, all of us can appreciate the love, the friendship, the deep bonding that we become privy to.
AMOS LASSEN
Literary Pride--a gay reading circle
Ford, Michael Thomas, Full Circle, Kensington Press, May, 2006.
Michael Thomas Ford's novel of adolescent lust, unrequited love, messed up friendships and domestic bliss takes place over a fifty year period. It is a powerful story of friends and lovers and of bonds that come full circle. This is the tale of Ned Brummel, a history professor who lives happily with his partner of twelve years in small town America. This happiness takes a turn when he receives a phone call from a friend, Jack, whom he has not heard from in years and who tells him that another friend is very ill and possibly dying. The news shatters Ned's peace and he takes a plane to Chicago. On the way his memory takes him on yet another journey--one that examines the events of his life and the shaping of his world and his relationships with others.
Going back to the 50's and 60's, we are invited into the world of Jack and Ben who found beauty in their love for one another. But college was to change that and that change came by the name of Andy Kowalski. Both men fall for him and fall hard. What follows is a series of secret meetings and betrayals as they hurt, love, mature and heal one another over the course of the following years. We read of their lives in the drugged out days of San Francisco in the seventies. through the advent of AIDS in the eighties to the activism of the nineties and as they live through these periods, their relationships change and grow and reflect the transformation that was happening around them. Now together again as one of them is about to leave the world, they have one last chance to face the past, examine its damage, rejoice in its good memories and embrace their love for each other--a love that withered the supreme test--time.
Without giving away the plot any more than I have, I will say that this is a moving saga of three friends but it is also an unyielding story that celebrates the power of friendship and deep feelings that were able to withstand enormous obstacles-a love that is ultimately the most important thing that one can share.
I have read all of Ford's books up until now but none on them (as good as they are) ever engaged me quite the way this one did. I am used to laughing with Ford while this book moved me to the other emotions which I had not experienced in his writing until now. Having experienced the same periods in history and having been there, Full Circle was a "remembrance of times past". It is not often that a book can portray the power of love so that it moves the reader to tears.
Through the three major characters, Ford portrays the gay "every man" having him travel through the history of gay America. And he does so with beautiful prose, with realism and with a heightened sense of emotion. I think one of the things that makes this book so important is that it is not the story of the "twink" generation which we have of late found so much of on bookshelves. Rather it tells of the baby boomers who have now become middle-aged adults. Even though it embraces the "older" generation, all of us can appreciate the love, the friendship, the deep bonding that we become privy to.
AMOS LASSEN