The Spring before Obergefell: A Novel: The James Alan McPherson Prize for the Novel
Autor Ben Grossbergen Limba Engleză Paperback – oct 2024
It’s not easy for anyone to find love, let alone a middle-aged gay man in small-town America. Mike Breck works multiple part-time jobs and bickers constantly with his father, an angry conservative who moved in after Mike’s mother died. When he’s not working or avoiding his father, Mike burns time on hookup apps, not looking for anything more. Then he meets a local guy, Dave, just as lonely as he is, and starts to think that maybe he doesn’t have to be alone. Mike falls hard, and in a moment of intimacy, his pent-up hopes for a relationship rush out, leading him to look more honestly at himself and his future.
Winner of the James Alan McPherson Prize for the Novel, Ben Grossberg’s The Spring before Obergefell is about real guys who have real problems, yet still manage to find connection. Funny, serious, meditative, and hopeful, The Spring before Obergefell is a romance—but not a fairytale.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9781496240347
ISBN-10: 1496240340
Pagini: 254
Dimensiuni: 140 x 216 x 17 mm
Greutate: 0.32 kg
Editura: Nebraska
Colecția University of Nebraska Press
Seria The James Alan McPherson Prize for the Novel
Locul publicării:United States
ISBN-10: 1496240340
Pagini: 254
Dimensiuni: 140 x 216 x 17 mm
Greutate: 0.32 kg
Editura: Nebraska
Colecția University of Nebraska Press
Seria The James Alan McPherson Prize for the Novel
Locul publicării:United States
Notă biografică
Ben Grossberg is the author of four books of poetry, My Husband Would, Space Traveler, Underwater Lengths in a Single Breath, and Sweet Core Orchard, winner of the Lambda Literary Award.
Extras
1
If I were straight, or if I lived in one of a handful of cities—
really, a handful of neighborhoods—it could happen at a coffee
shop. Failing that, it could happen at work. It wouldn’t be a “meet
cute.” I’m too uptight for that. But a hello, a recognition that we
were connecting in a space of romantic possibility, rather than the
usual space between men who don’t know each other, which is more
about measuring distance, maintaining boundaries.
Sometimes people just start talking to strangers. That’s how it
would happen. He starts talking to me. Complaining. Maybe about
the weather because it’s early February in the Midwest. Let’s say
we’re in line at the post office, and he says, “Line’s long but at least
it’s warm in here,” clapping his gloved hands together, a padded
envelope between them. He shows a little bit of tooth, a smile under
his beard.
Then I’d have to say something, and I’d want to say something
because he’s got a kind, wide face. A little grizzled, wrinkled around
the eyes, but bright eyes. I’d want to continue the conversation.
But I wouldn’t be able to think of anything fast enough, and the
moment would pass.
No, not this time. That’s the second thing that’s different. Not
only are we free from the assumption that we’re both straight, but
the moment doesn’t pass. He puts out his hand and says his first
name: maybe it’s Sandro or Chris or Jake.
I say my name, shake his hand, and ask how he’s holding up with
the snow. I mention that I heard on the news they’re up to eight
feet total accumulation this winter in cmh. (The airport code for
Columbus. He’d be local; he’d recognize it.) And he says that must
be why his back has been sore for the last week, shoveling that much.
“That shit weighs a ton.” And I say that it’s my left rotator cuff, that
I fucked it up with decades of bad form at the gym, and I really feel
it shoveling. The line dwindles as we talk, and soon he’s at the front.
He nods at me, then goes up to the counter. While I’m waiting—at
the head of the line now—I scribble my phone number on a Priority
Mail label and step up to leave it beside him as he watches the clerk
weigh his envelope. “Hey,” I say as I place the square of paper, “say
hello sometime.”
The Castro. ptown. Parts of New York City. Neighborhoods
where that kind of interaction would be possible. They are as foreign
to me as if they existed in some other epoch: a Roaring Twenties,
a Summer of Love. I don’t live in those neighborhoods, and those
neighborhoods don’t live in me.
If I were straight, or if I lived in one of a handful of cities—
really, a handful of neighborhoods—it could happen at a coffee
shop. Failing that, it could happen at work. It wouldn’t be a “meet
cute.” I’m too uptight for that. But a hello, a recognition that we
were connecting in a space of romantic possibility, rather than the
usual space between men who don’t know each other, which is more
about measuring distance, maintaining boundaries.
Sometimes people just start talking to strangers. That’s how it
would happen. He starts talking to me. Complaining. Maybe about
the weather because it’s early February in the Midwest. Let’s say
we’re in line at the post office, and he says, “Line’s long but at least
it’s warm in here,” clapping his gloved hands together, a padded
envelope between them. He shows a little bit of tooth, a smile under
his beard.
Then I’d have to say something, and I’d want to say something
because he’s got a kind, wide face. A little grizzled, wrinkled around
the eyes, but bright eyes. I’d want to continue the conversation.
But I wouldn’t be able to think of anything fast enough, and the
moment would pass.
No, not this time. That’s the second thing that’s different. Not
only are we free from the assumption that we’re both straight, but
the moment doesn’t pass. He puts out his hand and says his first
name: maybe it’s Sandro or Chris or Jake.
I say my name, shake his hand, and ask how he’s holding up with
the snow. I mention that I heard on the news they’re up to eight
feet total accumulation this winter in cmh. (The airport code for
Columbus. He’d be local; he’d recognize it.) And he says that must
be why his back has been sore for the last week, shoveling that much.
“That shit weighs a ton.” And I say that it’s my left rotator cuff, that
I fucked it up with decades of bad form at the gym, and I really feel
it shoveling. The line dwindles as we talk, and soon he’s at the front.
He nods at me, then goes up to the counter. While I’m waiting—at
the head of the line now—I scribble my phone number on a Priority
Mail label and step up to leave it beside him as he watches the clerk
weigh his envelope. “Hey,” I say as I place the square of paper, “say
hello sometime.”
The Castro. ptown. Parts of New York City. Neighborhoods
where that kind of interaction would be possible. They are as foreign
to me as if they existed in some other epoch: a Roaring Twenties,
a Summer of Love. I don’t live in those neighborhoods, and those
neighborhoods don’t live in me.
Recenzii
“The world of this novel is patiently rendered with language that is direct, unadorned, yet full. The characters are presented with the kind of affection that is rare in much current literature. This is a love story and a growth story and a story about how the world changes and affects our self-definition, confidence, and place within it. The relationships are familiar but not cliché, surprising but not sensational. I love the honesty and openness of this novel.”—Percival Everett, author of James and Erasure
“What I loved about this first novel is Ben Grossberg’s nuanced and truthful depiction of his protagonist. Mike is a gay everyman, scraping by on jobs as a handyman and an adjunct professor as he wrestles with the inertia of middle age and looks for—he’s not sure what. Grossberg gives us a compelling and sympathetic character and is a novelist to watch.”—Wally Lamb, author of She’s Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True
Descriere
It’s not easy for a middle-aged gay man to find love out in small-town America, so when Mike Breck blows his shot with a local guy just as lonely as he is, he’s got to open up to the people around him to figure out how to angle for a second chance.