How the Fake Becomes Real

Reading Challenge / April 2014: Contemporary Romance

Pull Me Under by Zarah Detand
Rating: B+

After a video of Ben, a famous footballer who's closeted, dancing with a guy goes viral, his manager suggests Ben get a fake boyfriend to show what an upstanding guy he is.  Henry accepts the challenge of becoming Ben's ersatz love because he admires Ben and wants to help him.  This doesn't go over well with James, who's in love with Henry and sees his "sacrifice" in becoming Ben's media boyfriend as too much.

The story on the surface revolves around how Ben and Henry get together as real lovers and overcome their fake relationship to find happiness.  But on a deeper level it's the story of how Ben grows up and stops believing his publicity in order to become himself.

What Ben and Henry don't understand at the beginning of the book is that Henry is in love with Ben's media image.  When that image changes from interesting footballer to gay sports icon, Henry falls even deeper in love with the fake Ben.

Consequently, both men have to change.  Both must look beneath the fame, money, and media images to find who they really are in order to come together on a level that is potentially lasting.  Until they do, not only are they cardboard cutouts but their relationship is too.

Detand is masterful in writing Ben's stream-of-consciousness first-person narrative.  Ben's at once puffed up with his sports prowess yet still uncomfortable with his success.  He has great rapport with his teammates and other athletes but is unsure of himself with anyone else.  He's self-conscious enough to be aware that maybe he isn't as great as the media think he is.  And that's a troubling thought.

Henry, on the surface, seems like a saint, putting up with Ben's often larger than life ego.  But Henry's got a secret agenda.  Henry can see how important Ben is to gay boys and men everywhere.  Henry knows that he's the one responsible for keeping Ben from becoming outrageous and embarrassing himself and everyone around him.  Ben's image is important to the gay cause, and Henry's there to help him keep that image clean.

James who wants Henry to be his boyfriend and is contemptuous of Ben is the third interesting character in this romance.  James sees Ben as a buffoon who should be ignored.  He can't understand why Henry would want to protect and promote Ben at all since as far as James is concerned there's nothing real about the footballer at all.  Instead of seeing how Ben's potentially a good role model, James sees him as a setback to the cause.

Although it took me a while to get into the first person streaming presentation, I very much enjoyed this book because it brought an entirely new look at gay athletes and their part as role models in society, especially since some of these athletes aren't the most mature or thoughtful people.  Maybe some of them really do need Henrys to make them think like adults and not just party and respond like teens.

Not So Offside This Time Around

Reading Challenge 2014: February--Pick a book from a series you're behind on

Grade: A

Offside Chance by Mercy Celeste is the third in the Southern Scrimmages series and the author suggests that the books be read in order: Six Ways from Sunday, Sidelined, and finally Offside.

The books deal with professional American football players and homosexuality, a combination that was popping up in the news during the season and will probably be cropping up fairly regularly now that pro athletes are coming out of the closet.

Six Ways from Sunday has to do with an NFL tight end and a career Marine who fall in love even though they can't be together as much as they like.  When the Marine is captured and presumed dead, the football player thinks his life has ended.  But has it?

Not answering that question but moving on to book two, Sidelined.  In this book, a successful quarterback is cut from his team and decides to go back to his hometown where he hopes to figure out his twisted life.  Jude, his lawyer brother, persuades him to help coach the new high school's football team, made up of students from previously rival high school teams.  The head coach?  Once the quarterback's high school rival.

Celeste constructs interesting and elaborate plots, and Offside is no different from her previous books.  Here Jude, the lawyer, moves back to New Orleans to look after Levi's house, but is surprised to find a hulking football player, Levi's best friend, already ensconced there.

William Slater is standing on the edge of a breakdown since his house burned down, his contract is about to expire, and Levi has turned out to be someone he barely recognizes.  His refuge in Levi's house is compromised, however, when Levi's brother Jude appears.  Initially, the only thing they seem to bond on is how perplexed they are about Levi declaring himself flamboyantly gay.

As they're holed up together during a freak snowstorm in New Orleans, the self-declared low-brow Slater and the decidedly upper-brow Jude must make compromises in order live without killing each other.  That they do, only to discover two surprising things: they're sexually and eventually totally attracted to each other, and someone is trying to kill them.

Of all the Southern Scrimmage characters, I like Slater and Jude the best.  Both of them are no nonsense guys whose worlds have changed dramatically in just a few months.  Unlike the high maintenance Levi or the first book's couple, Slater and Jude try to roll with the punches and then figure out where to go from there.

But these new rounds of punches have nearly KO'd them.  They can't rely on Levi or his boyfriend for support, and since they're boxed in the house in New Orleans, they are sitting ducks for the killer.

In addition, Celeste brings up the very real question of what guys in their thirties who are kicked out of their careers are supposed to do with the rest of their lives.  Slater has no idea, and his quandary and floundering are probably typical to all pro athletes whose bodies can't sustain them more than a decade.  Having someone like level-headed Jude in his corner makes the transition less debilitating.  Slater for all his physical strength definitely needs Jude for his mental and emotional support.

Fortunately, unlike in the previous books, Celeste is more grounded here, and the book doesn't rely on a dramatic (and somewhat unbelievable) surprise.  Instead this is the totally believable story of two guys burdened with family who must play the hand they were dealt or walk away from the table.  That they both play and play well makes the story totally enjoyable.

Goode Is Great

The more books I read by John Goode, the more I enjoy his writing style and his adept depth in writing gay romances.  In Taking Chances, his latest, he's commenting on love in general, not just in love in one particular case.  He's also making a statement about whom one decides to befriend.

We all have destructive friends, and Matt and Tyler seem to be relying on exactly the wrong people for advice.  One of the many facets of this wonderful novel is the struggle both the guys must go through in order to realize how their so-called friends are holding them down and are making their lives miserable.

Recognizing and then breaking the bonds of what seems to be supportive friendship, however, is only a tiny part of a story that applies to both hetero and homosexual relationships.  And it's only a tiny reason for readers to enjoy the book.

Sidelined in More Ways Than One

Stories about gay football players, especially those who have been rivals for years, are high on my "like" list, and Mercy Celeste's newest is no exception.  After reading the first book in the series, Six Ways from Sunday, and watching the MIA soldier go from the dead to alive lists, I was ready for another weeper from Celeste.

Sidelined, however, doesn't have angst and sorrow underpinnings like Sunday did even though at first glance with the false rape charges against Levi, the pro football player, there might seem to be some angst.  Rather this is the story of high school rivals who should have been high school lovers except that male athletes didn't hook up romantically in the Deep South then--and possibly not even now.

Since the next book is about Levi's attorney brother Jude, I'm wondering how Celeste is going to work the football angle into the story.  Are any of Levi's former teammates closet gays?  Or is Celeste veering from the football field?  Can't wait to find out.

The Romance of Football (Australian Style)

My review of Tigers and Devils by Sean Kennedy went live on AAR today.  Not only is the novel a really nice romance, it also brought back lots of childhood memories for me.  Because these dovetail so nicely, Tigers and Devils is one of my Desert Isle Keepers, a book I'll read and cherish forever, even though Tigers and Devils covers Australian football (an unknown to me) instead of American college football.

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of going to Cornhusker football games in the fall.  For those not in the know, the Cornhuskers come from that Midwestern giant, the University of Nebraska, now with a slash at Lincoln.

But in the days when I was a on-site fan, it was just NU with no "/ Lincoln."  The games were rarely played in warm temperatures, but usually in gray, over-cast, often sleety conditions on real turf.  My parents had 50-yard line seats in the lower section under the overhang, so when the serious weather started--the wind, sleet, and snow--they were protected.

My brother and I, however, were "treated" to knothole seats in the end zone.  There, sitting on boards over a steel framework, we bundled in our coats, sweaters, hats, gloves, and cups of hot chocolate as the wind whipped around us.  Knothole benches are lousy seats.  We couldn't tell where anyone was on the field and just reacted with the crowd around us, everyone dressed in as much red and white (the school colors) as we owned.

I thought we were crazy.  I still do.  But when NU plays football and the game airs on TV, I'm still right there, yelling at the players and cheering when the team scores.