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desaevio95 's review for:
Open, Heaven
by Seán Hewitt
A gorgeous, lyrical lovesong that exalts a lonely gay boy's all-consuming yearning into glorious bursts of color and light. It's really hard to do justice to how beautiful, smart, and thoughtful Hewitt's prose is. His background as a poet absolutely helped develop his crystal clear and highly relatable narration. All the minutiae of how gay boys are hyperaware of their profligate oxymoron: terrified of the cruelty of hypermasculinity and needing to be held by someone who has the potential for that. James's story is heartbreaking and deeply felt, and I started reading his glimpses of love from the boy he adores with the same feverish anticipation, I could feel my pulse quickening along with the rapid hand-wringings of the narration whenever that explosion would come. I really felt for the sharp inquisitive diatribes James constantly had to direct at himself, to try to explain his feelings and come to terms with why he must hide his reactions and roil in shame the way he does.
I thought one weak point was how nebulous his relationships with his core family were, I got the sense that there was more complexity there that could help ground / raise the stakes of when James is at war with how his yearning uproots his "position", even though he does remark often he feels like he doesn't belong with his family at all. I would've liked to see some more pages about his individual relationships with each of the family, especially since Eddie seems to fill the May Belle Aarons role.
As a debut, it has riches upon riches for exploring the harsh and heartrending realities of gay sexuality, and it portrays the central relationship with so much tenderness and care that you can feel the boys' emotions leaping off the page. Hewitt is absolutely one to watch out for if his debut is this goddamn strong.
I finished this novel listening to Joe Hisaishi's soft, thoughtful piano-led score for The Boy and the Heron on vinyl, my back to the sun, standing and dreaming with James and Luke's love story.
I thought one weak point was how nebulous his relationships with his core family were, I got the sense that there was more complexity there that could help ground / raise the stakes of when James is at war with how his yearning uproots his "position", even though he does remark often he feels like he doesn't belong with his family at all. I would've liked to see some more pages about his individual relationships with each of the family, especially since Eddie seems to fill the May Belle Aarons role.
As a debut, it has riches upon riches for exploring the harsh and heartrending realities of gay sexuality, and it portrays the central relationship with so much tenderness and care that you can feel the boys' emotions leaping off the page. Hewitt is absolutely one to watch out for if his debut is this goddamn strong.
I finished this novel listening to Joe Hisaishi's soft, thoughtful piano-led score for The Boy and the Heron on vinyl, my back to the sun, standing and dreaming with James and Luke's love story.