Dream Boy

Starred review from January 9, 1995
With this heartbreaking story of first love, Grimsley, recipient of the 1995 Sue Kaufman Prize for his first novel, Winter Birds, has crafted another potential award winner. Here he works that novel's theme--a father's abuse of his son--into his sensitive depiction of a love affair between two high-school boys in the rural South. Nathan, a sophomore and the only child of an abusive, scripture-quoting, booze-guzzling father and a nearly invisible mother, becomes smitten with Roy, a senior who lives next door. Almost without realizing it (and with some reluctance on both sides), they begin an achingly tender romance. Ultimately, peer pressure leads to tragedy, and to a sort of metaphysical denouement that may strike some readers as over-the-top. But by that time, Grimsley's scenario has become so poignant and credible that the ending seems almost inevitable. He clearly understands the pain and confusion of budding love, and his present-tense narrative adds urgency and a touching immediacy to his tale. Without ever succumbing to cliche, Grimsley cuts with surgical precision to the heart of these characters' inchoate longings and barely repressed fears. Deceptively simple descriptive passages are hauntingly elegiac, and things left unsaid become as important as words expressed: these players' silences speak volumes. Romantic passion, violence and ultimate liberation coalesce in this singular display of literary craftsmanship.

September 1, 1995
For collections desirous of a "problem" coming-of-age story with a gay theme, this might be a good bet. Grimsley, a Pen/Hemingway finalist for Winter Birds (LJ 8/94), writes smoothly, his Southern settings are evocative, and the dysfunctional family (with an abusive, alcoholic, Bible-toting father) of young Nathan rings true, as does the violence that pervades Dream Boy. Psychologically, what draws Nathan to Roy, the older-boy-baseball-star-with-a-girlfriend, makes sense; but, sexual orientation aside, Roy's interest in Nathan makes much less sense--as if it's supposed to be magic or chemistry. Whatever it is, the treatment is too perfunctory. Similarly, settings can tend toward the formulaic (farm pond flanked by overgrown cemetery--check; deserted, picturesque, haunted plantation mansion--check), and the plot is too subservient to atmosphere and theme. Still, this interesting effort will undoubtedly collect some rave reviews and therefore deserves consideration.--Robert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.

September 15, 1995
Nathan moves with mother and father to a farm. Roy lives next door with his mother and father. Slightly younger than Roy, Nathan is bookish and slight, whereas Roy is outgoing, popular, and a real farm boy. Nathan falls in love with Roy, and Roy falls in love with Nathan. They have sex. Meanwhile, Nathan's alcoholic father has sexually abused Nathan; Nathan's mother sighs about it all but seems helpless to do anything. Nathan starts sleeping in the woods and Roy's barn but eats at home when his father isn't there as his mother watches and says little. Nathan, Roy, and two of Roy's friends start swimming together, then go hiking to a place where there's an abandoned house, where malice in the interactions among them leads to Nathan's being raped. Wimsley tells this story as if it were a dream: the diction, pacing, and details all have a distant, almost fuzzy quality. This very unusual novel is a truly unique addition to gay literature. ((Reviewed Sept. 15, 1995))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1995, American Library Association.)