The Backlot Gay Book Forum discussion

Reading through the three books (Acclamation, Reclamation, Intimation) and companion novelette (Sublimation) has been a wildly emotional roller-coaster ride, Ms Hoffman’s writing has picked me up and crashed me down over and over – and I am desperate to get back on the ride with the forthcoming final volume in this amazing series.

The three main books are related first-hand through Michael Cassidy’s POV – and he has been known to unexpectedly break through the fourth wall and address readers directly with some question or comment, in a non-disarming, Miss Read manner! Running from a painful past of loss and heartbreak, Michael takes up residence in a quiet town of Ashebrooke, and a teaching job (literature) in the local private Roman Catholic high school (despite his avowed atheism). He wants to be invisible, get on with his quiet existence, wrapped up in a shroud of grief and loneliness. He is winter …

Breaking through his icy frozen existence like the spring breezes and hopeful sunlight is neighbor school-boy Dominic Butler. With what starts off as neighborly kindness and helpful convenience … these two MCs find the time spent together and the relationship built over time becoming something much more than expected - something hopeful, beautiful, terrifying and conflicted.

This is not your standard love story … thire age difference, the issue of abuse of power and position of trust … all preclude this storyline from progressing in any set predictable pathway; I keep getting surprised where the twist and turn of the plot takes me next (not to reiterate the emotional ups and downs mentioned before). Michael and Dominic have to overcome so many internal barriers and conflicts … fear, pain of loss, religious guilt, internalized homophobia, insecurities and arrogance. All that before we even get to the acknowledgement of attraction. However, I must say the sexual tension and angst of physical attraction becomes clear from a third-way into first book.

Can I say here before you jump to a conclusion that this is a prurient voyeuristic journey into a mind of a pedophile … I am a teacher of many students myself, and at no time did I find myself reacting in horror at what I was reading. Michael is no saint, and he would be the first to tell you in no uncertain terms, but life does take him (through his relationship with Dominic) to places he neither predicted, expected nor wanted. The writing is so many places is lyrically beautiful, my eyes kept watering through pages of remarkable insightful writing, full of raw human emotion and symbolism. But I would be remiss to omit that lurking behind the wonder and magic of Michael and Dominic’s growing relationship and love are the dark clouds of doubt, recrimination, fear and guilt. The amazing thing is the author’s brilliance at keeping both streams concurrent through the chapters.

Without giving too much away, here are some of my random thoughts and gut reactions about this series:

(a) This is best book I read to date that manages to combine spirituality and sexuality in a believably organic way … the spiritual is physically sexual and vice-verse – and oh the beauty of it.
(b) I will never hear Etta James singing “At Last” without imagining Dominic singing the words in his bathrobe!
(c) Coming to terms with one’s sexuality has never been done so painfully and beautifully than in the park scene/lakeside scene.
(d) I have a whole new appreciation for Japanese food – even mochi.
(e) I cannot believe how many believable ‘roadblocks’ thrown in the way of the MCs getting physical together … kudos to Ms Hoffman for her sheer ingenuity.
(f) The cathedral scene at the last quarter of Intimation is sheer MAGIC!
(g) Dominic is my teenage self’s dream-wish for a boyfriend. Sublimation told through his POV is chock-full of YA sexiness.

I absolutely recommend this series - be brave and try it. You’d be blown away, bowled over. And yes you’d be left feeling bereft like me at the end of book three (Intimation) but thank God there’s a book 4 to pick up all the pieces. I will be re-reading these books over again – there’s just so much to be gleaned in them.

OK, I am totally gonna be checking this one out soon. Just because last week I read Where You Are by JH Trumble and was left very frustrated. I hated how the teacher acted without any common sense. SO I am curious to see how this is handled here.

Plus the books are only $2.99. Just bought the first one.

I've got the Trumble book in my Kindle so I should read that to make the comparisons eh??? Question in ... does the heart motivate and move the head OR is it the other way round? Michael Cassidy struggles with both I feel.

I may not read any more from this author. I recently finished Acclamation by skimming the last quarter of the book, I found the sex mostly unnecessary and the remainder of the writing if not purple then certainly verbose. From the beginning I couldn't understand why the author would set the story in Northamptonshire when apart from some spellings and colloquialisms it read like an American setting. On the plus side I thought the characterisations worked well, I felt that Michael and Dominic were whole people, I just wish someone had taken a blue pencil to some of the prose (well quite a lot actually) and that the author had set the story somewhere she was more familiar with in terms of geography, education and social economics.

Having read all four books in the series, I can't say I did not struggle at times when the prose gets a little too much (round and round) in Michael's head; but it does reflect the intense angst and conflict he struggled with over the course of the two years.

My greatest appreciation are the flashes of beautiful language the author comes up with scattered throughout these books - I found myself stopping the reading and re-reading what I just read, and then saying the words out aloud. These gems made up for having, at times, to wade through a morass of internal thought-prose.

I would willingly go and re-read that Cathedral scene (with rings) in the last quarter of Intimation, except I dread the heart-rending awfulness of the cliffhanger chapters found at the end of the book.

I come from The Land Downunder, so I have little exposure to the lay of the land in UK - hence, did not get 'niggled' by UK/US discrepancies. I did feel Michael's sense of alienation and struggle when the plot setting relocates to Japan in book 4.