2024-03-02
The author recounts struggling to get his life in gear and being energized by new romance as a young gay man in this hangdog coming-of-age memoir.
Smith opens with vignettes of his current comfortable life in New York with husband Julius, two imperious cats, and a gig teaching Buddhist meditation, then shifts to his anxious, frazzled years as a college grad in Chicago in the mid-1990s. Many issues plagued him: a toxic relationship with his homophobic Irish Catholic family, a recent bad breakup, a frustrated yen to write, and a social life that mainly consisted of listening to his college French teacher, Evelyn, sob about her melodramatic love life. This last hobby paid off when Evelyn introduced Smith to François, the man of his dreams. The 30-something French documentary filmmaker has a beguiling mix of qualities—he's sexy, worldly, and kindly. After a magical night out that ended with a passionate kiss, François flew off with promises of a future with Smith, an aspiration that reinvigorated the author. When a long-anticipated sojourn in Paris with François turned sour, Smith started the plangent but hopeful process of surviving on his own psychic resources. Smith’s rambling reminiscences probe the exquisite pain of being young and feckless, his bubbling ambitions punctured at every turn, in evocative and bitterly funny prose: “‘Kyle,’ she said, stopping me at the door as she took off her reading glasses and rubbed her eyes, ‘Kyle, you’re a smart guy, aren’t you? I mean, you have a college degree, don’t you? You know, my other secretaries…they had far less education than you…and they caught on a lot faster.’” But he also registers the rush of connection and recognition that love brings with a quiet lyricism. (François “looked deeply into my eyes and said, ‘You’re beautiful.’ I didn’t respond. I simply took a seat on the barstool behind me. He took a seat on the one next to mine and held my hand.”) Smith’s travails will resonate with readers who have been young, desperate for love, and in search of self-definition.
An entertaining, poignant look back at a man’s fight to find his place in the world.
