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| "Comfort and Joy" | | Date Created: Feb 09, 2005, 10:54 AM |
Comfort and Joy, a book by Jim Grimsley is my latest read.
Originally published in 1999, I'm surprised I didn't get around to reading it earlier. I really enjoyed Grimsley's other books, particularly Winter Birds, and Dream Boy. I think this is one of those books that I thought I had read some time ago and forgotten. I think I also figured it was a Christmas book and didn't want to read it "out of season."
It is a Christmas book, sort of. The title refers to the chorus of the carol, "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen." In a nutshell, Dan, a shy hospital administrator, takes Ford, his goodlooking pediatrician boyfriend, home for the holidays. Dan's family is poor, Ford's is rich. Dan is completely out, Ford is still closeted. Dan has hemophilia and is HIV positive, Ford is completely healthy. These differences escalate into conflicts as the book moves back and forth between the present and flashbacks of their developing relationship.
Though the book is set at Christmas, in fact, Christmas is an excuse for Grimsley to write a meditation on why men stay together.
From the book:
"And they would wonder, without words, without sound: Why do men stay together? It is easy to understand why they fuck, but why do they stay together, what is the answer? Why do they live in the same house, share meals together, argue about money and parents, why do they have pets, plant begonias, bring home birthday cakes? Where are the children, where is the sense of permanence, what is the tie that binds?
Yet they slept peacefully, side by side, and the body of one became adjusted to the rhythm of the other, and the breathing of one slowed the breathing of the other, and they dreamed in tandem and shared fragments of each other's dreams, and they grew more like each other day by day, not in personality but in the fissures of the brain, because, seeing the same things every day, day after day, they laid down crevices in themselves that were the same shape, that were the same events written into memory, and this was enough, without words, to keep them silent about the fact of their hates and their fears, their deep concerns about each other, and the certainty that one of them would die first and neither of them knew which one it would be. The certainty that one of them would leave first, and that only by waiting could they learn which of the two." |
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