More than most of the books reviewed, If You Were With Me Everything Would Be All Right by Ken Harvey falls into a “good news…bad news” category.
First the good news! The author presents us with 13 short stories of about the same length each with a significant gay presence. Gayness however is not necessarily the primary driving force in most. This is neither a series of “Woe is me and my gay plight” stories nor a group of childhood reminiscences. Each work is freestanding and remarkably self-contained. Some of the characters seem to appear in more than one story but at a different age. Themes vary widely, ranging from loneliness, loss of a mother, loss of a newborn child, fear of commitment, first (gay) boyhood crush, transgender exploration, childhood sexual abuse and relationship communication. In one sense none of these themes is especially the province of the gay community but each is imbued with a same-sex viewpoint and sensibility.
Not one of the stories is boring. In fact most are quite interesting. I was especially taken by “Cow Tipping” a story seen through the eyes of an adolescent boy whose father is emotionally disturbed and who drifts into more and more uncontrolled sexual obsession. The child narrator’s father masturbates frequently …then touches himself in public in front of the class that he teaches. Ultimately he sexually abuses his son, whose only defense is to disassociate from reality…hence the title “Cow Tipping”. I was impressed by two other stories. “Sugar Boy” deals in well-written narrative with a pre-adolescent boy’s loss of his mother whom he partially unwittingly assists in committing suicide. “Paper Man” deals with a young gay man who, for somewhat fuzzy reasons, is unable to experience life directly and authentically and so deals with life sort of second hand. All that he feels is somehow distanced and unreal.
Now the bad news! As is the case with many things, experiences, and situations, strengths are also weaknesses. In this group the very variety of subject matter seemed gimmicky…as if the author made a list of situations and vignettes in which a gay theme could be applied, then set out to write a story for each item on the list. The result is a feeling of class work assignment. I could easily imagine this book as a compilation of the final stories from a three week college master’s class in writing given in the summer.
That the names of the characters appear in more that one work is confusing at best. I found it irritating. No character is sufficiently well developed as to have a genuine identity. I couldn’t tell if the Theo of one story was the same Theo of another…in fact the behavior and sensibility was so diffuse that they seemed different persons…and two dimensional at that.
Throughout the collection I got a feeling analogous to looking at a painting in which the artist used only colors straight from the tube with no subtlety and with distorted perspective. Rarely have I experienced an ambivalence about a review. The truth is that I don’t know how I feel about these stories. Certainly some are memorable, if not vivid. Some indeed are sad and not a little moving, but only half-heartedly moving, only “sort of” sad. I find myself prefacing each thought with “I guess I felt that…”
I cannot enthusiastically recommend reading the collection, yet I’m not sorry I spent the time myself.
Because the collection is inherently immature I feel like I’m reading an adult student’s work and and trying hard not to hurt his feelings while making it clear that these are not really ready for publication. But, for good or ill, they did get published.
If you find a copy left behind on your next flight grab it and enjoy a couple of stories. But if you’re in a bookstore, snap up Andrew Holleran’s In September, the Light Changes, or Larry Kinsman’s Water from the Moon both of which present authentic feeling and beautiful writing style. This collection from Ken Harvey does neither.