Book Review: Every Time I Think of You by Jim Provenzano
Book Review by Bud Gundy
If you ever saw the movie Beautiful Thing, you might remember that feeling of delight in
seeing a first love, coming-of-age tale told from the perspective of gay
teens. Now, in the age of Glee and many other stories, this genre like all others
can start to feel weighted down by formulaic and standard tropes.
In his novel Every Time I Think of You, Jim Provenzano breaks some molds and gives us a
satisfying read that takes us in new directions. The story introduces Reid and Everett, two young men who
hail from different parts of the same Pennsylvania town, in a chilly encounter
in the snow. While out in the
elements of winter, the boys heat up a private grove of trees with the sort of first
encounter that most gay men will recognize – and that also illustrates the old
saw that straight people should never ask a gay couple the circumstances of
their first meeting.
The encounter sets in motion all the elements of a
first-rate love story – the clash of economic and cultural hierarchies; the
tension of family dynamics; the dizzying swirl of falling in love. While Reid is the only son of a middle
class, suburban family, Everett boasts the pedigree of town founders – the sort
of family that inaugurated posh local events like the Spring Fling, and whose
surname graces whole areas of the city.
Reid might have enjoyed the benevolence of the local Country Club that
allowed children from the other side of town to enjoy the snowy hills of the
golf course during winter, but Everett hails from a family who shooed those
same children from the premises when golf beckoned for the wealthier families
in the warmer seasons.
All the same, Reid’s family is the one most readers will
appreciate and identify with, and his parents display a charming, eccentric
sensibility. Everett’s family,
meanwhile, is strewn across an emotional terrain scattered with distrust and
conflict, all kept tightly bound by acceptable public manners.
Just as the story feels as if it is nearing the expected
denouement, a sports accident shatters the effortless arc, and the characters
reel off onto trajectories of remorse, rage and uncertainty. The questions become far more complex,
and the answers more remote.
There’s a technicolor feel to this book, a glossy sheen of
hope that sometimes shines with a glare that obscures the more desperate world
of gay kids at the time and place in which these events take place – the late
1970’s in America’s Midwest. I
grew up at the same time, not far from where these characters live, in a town
that was culturally indistinguishable.
Reading the story, there were times when I wondered if such an array of
people (almost all of the parents, a sister, a peer, a counselor and a
wheelchair-bound friend) would display attitudes that felt more contemporary. While this dissonance sometimes
intruded, the story sailed along without pause for me, a pace set by writing
appropriately honored with a Lambda Literary Award.
In the end, Provenzano carries the reader along by the
collar, creating a love story that veers in unexpected directions and that
offers a readable tale that rarely pauses for breath.
Available online: Click here