THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 10, 1995 TAG: 9509080433
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY BRITT RENO
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
DREAM BOY
JIM GRIMSLEY
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 195 pp. $18.95.
In his first autobiographical novel, Winter Birds, Jim Grimsley wrote of Danny Crell, a hemophiliac growing up in North Carolina with an abusive father. Nathan, the protagonist of Dream Boy, Grimsley's second novel, has much in common with Danny. He is vulnerable, victimized and a product of the Southern culture and code: Never let the neighbors see your dirty laundry and always go to church on Sunday, no matter what happens the rest of the week.
But he has something that Danny doesn't - love and the beginnings of a life of his own.
Nathan has just moved with his parents from a nearby town to rural Potter's Lake because of untold rumors. He meets Roy, the son of the neighboring farmer who owns the house that Nathan's father rents. Roy is older, a strong athletic boy, masculine yet tender. He and Nathan connect immediately, wavering among tension, attraction and awkwardness.
The other characters are shadowy figures on the edges of Nathan's mind - kept there for his own protection. His parents are quickly pegged in the opening scene in church: `` is thinking about salvation and hellfire and the taste of whiskey . . . Mom sighs, dreaming of a Sunday morning that will never end.'' Roy is the only one whom Nathan lets in, and he becomes his focus and salvation: ``Jesus has a face like that boy, a serene smile with dimples . . . and Jesus has the same strong, smooth arms.''
Religious references, Bible verses and spiritual hymns permeate the novel, simultaneously soothing and oppressing Nathan. Religion is a force that Nathan must contend with, overcome and reinterpret. The novel begins and ends with the image of the Disciple John laying his head on Jesus' chest, a moment of closeness that Nathan's preacher cannot understand. But Nathan and Roy do.
Dream Boy is subtle yet brusque, gentle yet cruel. There are hypocrisy and duplicity in Grimsley's style and messages, just as there are in the lives of the church-going community and Nathan and Roy's relationship: ``Sometimes the look in Roy's eyes reminds Nathan of his own father, of the look in his own father's eyes.'' Roy does some of the same things to Nathan that his molesting father did to him, yet in one case it's pleasurable, the other unbearable. Grimsley progressively blurs the line between tender love and abusive humiliation.
The connection between violence and homoeroticism is circular. Molested by his father, Nathan thus has experience that he can bring to his encounters with Roy: ``The trick is to gain access to the knowledge he has stored inside knowledge, which has a source.'' Then his homosexuality brings on more violence when it is discovered.
This harsh take on homosexuality makes one wonder who is Grimsley's audience. The novel contains gay love scenes, described tactfully but intimately. But there is a negative cast over the entire story. Although there is a ``happy ending'' (a little too pat), this is not a feel-good novel for gays. But homosexuality in the heartland can't be easy, I suppose. Any true gay love story here would by definition be complicated and painful.
- MEMO: Britt Reno is a photographer and film editor who lives in Alexandria. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Jim Grimsley
by CNB