Genre: Literary
Fiction/LGBTQ
Description:
“Eddie and Alan is a novel that follows two men who reflect on
the end of their three-year relationship. They come from different walks of
life; Eddie is a black queer man, and Alan is a cis white, mostly straight man.
They were introduced to each other at work and quickly connected. Eddie and
Alan's friendship morphed into something more intimate, coming to a head during
their four-day beach vacation. At its heart, this story seeks to shed light on
the complexities of relationships between men, the fluidity of sexuality, and
what happens when the lines are blurred.”
Author:
Born in the southern US, Anthony Amiewalan describes himself as a first-generation Nigerian American. He mostly grew up in the Midwest, then lived on the west coast for a short time before landing in Brooklyn, NY where he lives with his longtime partner. This is his first novel although he also wrote a memoir that was released in November, 2022. For more, visit his website.
Appraisal:
Years ago I read a memoir written by a then new author that told the
story of a high school romance the author had. He and the girl he was involved
with were doing great until her parents put an end to it, forbidding them to
see each other. Years later, as adults, they ran into each other and things
took off again with them eventually getting married. The author’s next book was
the same story, told from the perspective of his girlfriend and eventual wife.
It turns out that while the big picture was often the same, the way they viewed
and interpreted events was often much different. The contrast between the two
viewpoints for an outsider was interesting because as an outside observer, a
reader who read about events from both sides could understand how both parties
came to see things the way they did and it was a reasonable viewpoint, at least
based on the information each had.
That’s a lot of words to tell you about a different book, but in the
preface of this book the author explains that this novel is going to tell the
story of two friends in a first-person narrative style from the viewpoint of
both of the main characters, which I’m sure you could guess are named Eddie and
Alan. Seeing this explanation upfront I immediately flashed on that set of
books above and saw how this approach could work. And it did. That Eddie and
Alan are very different from each other in many ways, from the obvious characteristics
of race and sexuality, to the different approaches to life, the way they deal
with difficult situations, and many other ways only adds to the story with the
contrasts helping the reader to understand how people who might be different
than the reader might view things. I’ve long thought that one of the things
gained by reading is that it puts the reader into the minds and lives of people
who are often much different than themself and helps them understand others
better as a side-effect. With these two main characters you’re guaranteed at
least one of them is going to be much different than you, quite possibly both
of them will be, at least in some ways. The result was an interesting and
enlightening read.
Buy now
from: Amazon US Amazon UK
FYI:
A small amount of adult language. There are also some adult situations
depicted although they are relatively mild as such things go.
Format/Typo
Issues:
Review is based on an advance reviewer copy, so I can’t gauge the
final product in this area.
Rating: ****
Four Stars
Reviewed
by: BigAl
Approximate word count: 35-40,000 words
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