The cover of this month’s book alone may entice you to buy it. Trust that instinct if you have it, and then do yourself a favor and read it. This is yet another collection of short stories, clearly one of the most splendid mediums for the telling of gay themes.
I’ll linger on the cover a moment more, just as you will. The bronzed, muscular, abdominal profile crops just below the head and features a tattoo that reads “South Boston” arranged as though it were a logo for the town. I made the mistake of thinking that this would be a story of Boston’s own gay mecca, but that is the South End. Southie, as South Boston is affectionately known, is the Irish neighborhood south of the famous downtown suburb, and hence, much more gritty and compelling a backdrop for these stories.
Despite this common setting that holds all of these stories together, you’ll forget that you’re in a rough part of Boston. Although setting is important, it takes a back seat to the superbly tight characterization that plagues other writers. Getting a reader to care about the characters and to allow their essence to linger in the pause between each story makes them breathtaking. In fact, I’d have to say that the only character I didn’t care for was Peter of “Peter Pillsbury’s Pride Parade”. Fatty was a far more interesting character, and he was dead.
You will have to endure what will seem at first to be very annoying prose in order to attain one of the most moving stories in the book: “The Rain”. All will be explained as the plot unfolds, and your heart will break. Stunning.
Another one of my favorites is “When Jesus Came to Town”, which like “The Rain” is the telling of a story by a character that has already endured the plot that is about to be told, and the subsequent buildup/hype does not even prepare you for the heart of the piece.
Finally, the title story “This Thing Called Courage” is a wonderful merging of circumstance that has all the trappings of a clichéd happy ending, which of course happens, but not before the main character recognizes it and laughs. Besides, I think an eloquent, dry-witted HVAC technician who finds himself suddenly vulnerable to the crushing remembrance of one moment in time sexy, don’t you?
I found myself consistently aware of very subtle common threads that wove themselves through these tales. These characters intersect neither in time nor specific location between stories, but there are distinct moments when you will be aware of a thought or idea that you’ve visited before. To me, it only strengthened the likability of this book. I think you’ll like it too.