Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Timothy James Beck Does It Again



I took a couple of novels to Palm Spring last week with the intent to spend at least some time around the pool reading. The weather was so hot, though, that I ended up spending a lot more time in the pool than sitting in the shade reading. Luckily, Someone Like You, Timothy James Beck's newest novel was so engaging that I made sure that I found the time to do some steady reading. In fact, I ended up getting up every morning as early as 6:30am. I always do that on short vacations. My internal clock is permanently set for 5:30am so getting out of bed at 6:30 is actually sleeping in. Taking advantage of the quiet morning hours, brewing some hot coffee and sitting outside reading was a great way to start the day.

I'm unsure just how a trio quartet of writers actually co-writes a book but the intrepid talents of TJB have it down to an art. Their style is so seamless you'd never guess that three four different people were responsible for the final product. In fact this trio quartet has such an incredible ability to flesh out the personalities of their fictional characters you begin to forget they aren't real. Every so often I had to remind myself that I was reading a story and not a personal diary. It was as if these people were part of my personal circle of friends. I liked Derek not only for his naivete and romantic notions of love but also for his determination and guts. I even like Derek's sugar daddy/lover, Hunter, despite his aloofness and inability to profess his love for Derek and my own frustration with his neglect of his relationship. Christian is one of those types of straight men that so many of us gay men strive to emulate; talented, sophisticated and unflappable in a crunch. And as for Vienna, she's the type of woman that we all hope to have in our lives; nurturing, strong, candid and a fighter that will defend your back no matter what.

Even the bad guys are people you can recognize and identify with. You may not like them, you may want to kick their butts but when they finally get their come uppance you can only sigh and smile.

Knowing that I wanted something to read while flying home to Portland, I purposedly left the last chapter unread so that I could fill that two-hour flight with something interesting. So when the plane took off, I flipped open Someone Like You as soon as the plane leveled off and the flight attendants started the in-flight service. When the cute, male steward handed me my complimentary glass of red wine (don't you just love Horizon Air!) he couldn't gush enough about how much he loved the book and the other TJB novels. His only complaint and one that I echo: What took them so long!?

1 comment:

timothyjlambert said...

One small correction; there were four TJB cowriters for SLY.

This post made my day. I'm so glad you enjoyed SLY and shared your thoughts on your blog. I wish I knew your flight attendant's name, so we could send him a thank you note, or a nice ham.