Josh McPhee and Kris Cerny broke up years ago over Josh’s drinking. In the face of Josh’s five-year sobriety, made clear at the start of the novel, the reader is surely a little puzzled at Kris’s resistance to what is clearly a deep mutual bond between them. The chief charm of Tortuga’s novel about love and art in the Southwest is the gradual revelation of what’s behind Kris’s inability to let go of his nearly irrational fears.
This story had two things that I love a lot: a redhead, and pottery. I’ve never actually gotten my hands on a redhead, but I handle ceramics professionally all the time, including lots of Pueblo pottery. The metaphoric use of a traditional Pueblo vessel as part of the story really appealed to me as a curator.
The back-and forth structure of this book might be confusing for some folks, but I liked the incremental understanding of these two young men’s stories, their backgrounds, and the history of their relationship. Youthful drinking these days always bothers me, because it’s a widespread behavior that seems very proto-alcoholic to me, and indeed is the crux of the problem between Josh and Kris.
The true issue at the heart of the story is masked by the superficial one: Kris’s wish to sell the gallery that Josh still runs, and Josh’s refusal to accept even a hugely lucrative offer. Both men are hiding behind this distraction rather than trying to figure out where their happiness lies. A road trip to Santa Fe to find a new artist to dazzle the Austin art scene is the catalyst, and Tortuga liberally spices the narrative with appealing, quirky characters, particularly the sprite-like Native artist Cypress, and Kris’s mysteriously unhappy twin sister Kristyna.
There are moments of great emotional punch in “Refired” and while it follows the norms of its genre fairly strictly, it also offers us new ground to explore and new ways to understand the wounded human heart.
By BA Tortuga
Four stars
Josh McPhee and Kris Cerny broke up years ago over Josh’s drinking. In the face of Josh’s five-year sobriety, made clear at the start of the novel, the reader is surely a little puzzled at Kris’s resistance to what is clearly a deep mutual bond between them. The chief charm of Tortuga’s novel about love and art in the Southwest is the gradual revelation of what’s behind Kris’s inability to let go of his nearly irrational fears.
This story had two things that I love a lot: a redhead, and pottery. I’ve never actually gotten my hands on a redhead, but I handle ceramics professionally all the time, including lots of Pueblo pottery. The metaphoric use of a traditional Pueblo vessel as part of the story really appealed to me as a curator.
The back-and forth structure of this book might be confusing for some folks, but I liked the incremental understanding of these two young men’s stories, their backgrounds, and the history of their relationship. Youthful drinking these days always bothers me, because it’s a widespread behavior that seems very proto-alcoholic to me, and indeed is the crux of the problem between Josh and Kris.
The true issue at the heart of the story is masked by the superficial one: Kris’s wish to sell the gallery that Josh still runs, and Josh’s refusal to accept even a hugely lucrative offer. Both men are hiding behind this distraction rather than trying to figure out where their happiness lies. A road trip to Santa Fe to find a new artist to dazzle the Austin art scene is the catalyst, and Tortuga liberally spices the narrative with appealing, quirky characters, particularly the sprite-like Native artist Cypress, and Kris’s mysteriously unhappy twin sister Kristyna.
There are moments of great emotional punch in “Refired” and while it follows the norms of its genre fairly strictly, it also offers us new ground to explore and new ways to understand the wounded human heart.