MAY 5. 2006 JU stout
45
books
Dysfunction
$ *• *
Queer novels explore shattered families
' ♦
faith for hrgtnnrr*
by Karen Kudej
All American Boy
by William J. Mann; Kensington Books, 2006; $16
softcover
When Wally Day fled the small all-American
town of Brown’s Mill for an acting career in the
city, he never wanted to look hack. His past was
tainted with memories of a mother he adored who
didn’t defend him from his abusive father. His
father, long dead, punished Wally for not being
“hoy” enough. And then there is Zandy—
Alexander Reefy—the first man to show Wally
love. Wally betrayed Zandy, confessing to their
relationship, which began when Wally was 13, and
signing the charges that sent Zandy to prison and
made him an outcast in the town.
Wally’s past comes flooding hack when his
mother, Regina, calls to ask for his help. Wally
heads home to find that not much has changed in
Brown’s Mill—though his cousin, Kyle, the true
troublemaker in the family, is missing, and Regina
is behaving strangely. With the help of Miss
Althea, the town’s queen and Wally’s childhood
mentor, Wally struggles to forgive his mother and
to seek forgiveness from a
dying Zandy. He also meets
Dee, the hoy not much older
th;m he was when he met
Zandy. Dee offers him a chance
to understand Zandy from a
different perspective and shows
him a door through which he
can move on in his life.
Meanwhile, Regina has her own reconciliation
to do with the past. At last she is standing up for
herself and reclaiming her life after the marriage
she never wanted to Wally’s father and the death
of the sister she relied on for guidance. As the nov
el progresses, one skeleton after another marches
out of the closet to confront Wally and Regina as
they try to make sense of each other.
All American Boy is William J. Mann’s fourth
novel. The writing is heavy and clunky at times,
hut ultimately Mann tells a complex, sensitive
story of hope and redemption.
Faith for Beginners
by Aaron Hamburger; Random House, 2005; $23-95
hardcover
Why can’t we all just get along? That is the
question at the heart of Faith for Beginners, a first
novel by Aaron Hamburger that follows the
Michaelson family on the Millennium Marathon
2000 group tour of Israel.
Helen Michaelson booked the trip for herself,
her chronically ill husband and her youngest son,
Jeremy, in an attempt to get their family back on
track. After years of voluntarily attending an
Orthodox school, Jeremy has gone punk with dyed
hair and multiple piercings. He has also followed in
his older brother’s footsteps with a taste for men.
Unlike his brother, who is in a successful relation
ship, Jeremy, going on his fifth year in college, is
struggling to find someone to love. He is recover
ing from a near miss with an overdose of pills, ice
cream and alcohol that even he isn’t sure was
intentional or accidental.
Except for the oppressive heat, the trip is
uneventful until the group reaches Jerusalem. As
Helen hopefully muses, “If Jeremy was going to find
Call Cathie, 503 494 6770.
OHSU VALUES OIVEBSITY ANO IS AN
EQUAL OPPORT UNIT Y/AFFIKMATIVC ACTION EMPLOYER
by K.M. Soehnlein; Kensington Books, 2005; $23
hardcover
Jamie Garner has been coasting along, living
the easy lite in San Francisco with his friends and
his dot-com boyfriend, Woody, until his estranged
father dies after a drawn-out battle against an
Alzheimer’s-related dementia. After a five-year
absence, Jamie returns to his New Jersey home
town, the prodigal son, home too late to make
amends.
While cleaning the attic of his father’s house,
Jamie discovers a box of letters and writings from a
year his father spent in San Francisco. The letters
allude to an uncle Jamie never knew about and to
a friend of his father’s who seems suspiciously queer.
K aren K udej is a Portland free-lance unter.
/
Works
TREATMENT STUDY
Interested?
You Can Say You Knew Me When
This fascinates Jamie, as his father vowed never to
accept his lifestyle.
Jamie returns restless to San Francisco. He
tracks down a painter his father knew in the Bay
Area and begins to piece together his father’s time
in “Frisco," hoping to find a story that will get him
back into the radio production scene. Frustrating
dead ends lead him into the depths of slackerdom.
He cheats on Woody, doesn’t return calls to his
friends and lets his bills pile up.
Just when he’s about to hit bottom, his sister
mails him another clue from his father’s house:
a journal documenting a trip to a cabin in rural
California. Jamie rents the cheapest car he can find
and sets out to retrace his father’s steps, trying to
understand how the young man who went west
inspired by Jack Kerouac and the Beat movement
turned into the conservative, intolerant father
Jamie knew.
Along the way, Jamie meets Jed, a young man
in search of direction. Jed leads Jamie to the area
his father had written about in his journal. Jamie
returns to San Francisco and continues his search.
Ultimately, he finds rhe lead he needs and is able
to track down his lost uncle, who had also been
rejected by Jamie’s father.
The strength of rhe novel lies in the details of
San Francisco’s 1960s beatnik scene contrasted
with the city during the dot-com business boom.
While K.M. Soehnlein’s prose is light and easy to
read, the plot is predictable. The reader will either
sigh with relief or yawn with boredom when Jamie
finally takes responsibility for his actions. ©
(’’'gM-rhjrV
Buprenorphine (Suboxone®)
* OHSU is enrolling
participants who are
HIV+ and addicted to
heroin, oxycodone,
or other opiates.
himself, where could he more
fitting than the capital of the
Jews’ home turf?”
During a tour of the Western
Wall, Jeremy is at last able to
ditch his parents and joins a
group of youths going home
with locals for a free Shahhat
dinner. He meets Noam, his host’s son, who
confesses to homosexual thoughts and takes Jeremy
to a park where local men cruise. There Jeremy
meets Ahmed, aka George, a young, deaf
Palestinian with a fetish for feet in football socks.
George shows Jeremy a side of Jerusalem typically
hidden from tourists and sucks him into the
complexity of the political situation.
Jeremy’s passive father decides to leave early,
freeing Helen for a journey of her own through the
Holy City. With her husband gone, Helen
succumbs to the adulterous intentions of the hairy
and handsome Rabbi Sherman. Alone, she must
confront her feelings about her marriage while
examining the lure of the rabbi and struggling to
understand her son.
Faith for Beginners is a well-crafted work. With
poignancy, humor and quirkiness, Hamburger offers
a touching story of a mother and a son who, in
attempting to locate themselves, come to an under
standing of one another.
$5 ♦
donation ot food ” <
or sundry items
Profesional Service
Cvmfortàble Biked
Recumbentd a Specialty!
"XI
Richard Voss, gri abr
Principal Broker / Owner
Peninsula Realty
6110 N. Lombard St.
Portland, OR 97203
Business (503) 286-5826
Cell (503) 804-9424
•Full Service Real Estate Office
•On Site Real Estate School
•Full Service Property Management
Se habla Español
•Notary Services
•Fax Machine Services
•In-office Closings
•On-site Mortgage Broker
Oaks Park Roller Rink
Open Tuesday-Sunday
(503) 230-7723
2025 SE Hawthorne
.Scr
ad cm
(A cj
cjjae
richard.vosstp century21 com
www century21 peninsula com
Each office is independently own^d and operated