What Comes Around by Jameson Currier; Chelsea Station Editions, $16
The search and seizure of love has been prime fodder for novels, movies, plays, and all manner of entertainment for eons. But securing love is another story altogether, and while finding a life partner can be a positive, life-altering event, the search itself can sap the vim and vitality from even the most resilient suitor.
This depletion is palpable when reading through the amorous misadventures of Jameson Currier's persistent, love-starved, unnamed narrator in his latest collection of 15 interconnected short stories, What Comes Around. In the opening piece, our boy is a fresh 15 years old, nervous, and at the mercy of a burgeoning desire for the Speedo-ed boys in his swim class. From there, he blooms and matures into his own skin, becomes hyperactively sexual, yet grows up licking the wounds from a series of unfulfilling stabs at finding love, beginning with an awkward "indiscretion" in Atlantic City, and progressing to closeted men, suicidal men, personal ads, blind dates, and bad boys in general.
At times his journey to find Mr. Right is agonizing, sometimes sad, and sometimes erotically titillating. But every scene is written with such beauty and poetic grace, it becomes an easy voyage to embrace, even though at times all the misfires and near-misses cut like a knife. Currier's protagonist has a knack for observing the intricate details of bodies, clothes and feelings, from a man's body hair to a too-large button-down shirt. Readers familiar with the author's other novels and short stories know he has a history of framing his characters in lush descriptions, and this book is no exception.
The stories, written over a period of 25 years and most appearing elsewhere in gay erotica compilations and literary magazines, are told from the second-person perspective ("You begin the class by swimming laps," "You imagine yourself with a different haircut.") This narrative device will prove disorienting to some, and tends to create distance between the story and the reader. Still, those who stick with it will be rewarded with crushing passages like this (after the narrator finds himself at odds once again with a reluctant companion): "And then you roll over and close your eyes, wondering if you could convince yourself you could be enough for Ross."
Linking wit, heady sex, longing, and the agony of a hollow love life, Currier beautifully romanticizes the hope and the hunt for love, the rarest flower.