The Backlot Gay Book Forum discussion

Unraveling
By Rick R. Reed
NineStar Press, 2020
Four stars

When I was young and newly out (and this is 45 years ago), I couldn’t grasp the idea of a guy who got married to avoid accepting that he was gay.

And then, over the course of my life, I began to meet those men.

This is part of the great puzzle of sexuality, gay men who are not bisexual, but who can fake it with a woman because of societal expectations and are able to bury their true selves deeply enough that they get by. For a while. It can be a few years, or (in one case I know) thirty-five years. Men in this situation have two choices: they can cheat on their wives and keep living the lie, or they can be honest. There is no way to avoid causing pain in a scenario like this.

Randy Kay is one of those men, who fell in love in college, married his sweetheart, Violet, and had a son with her – a son he adores as any father would, as I love my own son. Both Randy and Violet are Catholic, which is a major factor in my generation. Therein is the crux of why I liked this book: it is about my generation. Randy is my age, and the story is set in Chicago in 1986, when he finally realizes he can’t fake it any longer.

John Walsh is also my age. He, too, is like lots of men I met when I was young and newly out. He, however, has embraced being gay, living in Chicago as an EMT for the fire department and spending his leisure time with his best friend Vince, going to bars, picking up guys, living the good life. Except, the truth is that John isn’t so terribly happy with his life, either. Despite the gay liberation drumbeat of endless sex and no strings attached, John still finds himself yearning for that one person with whom he can settle down.

Remember also that it’s 1986, and AIDS has forever changed the landscape, if not the behavior, in Chicago’s Boystown.

The story unrolls with alternating viewpoints of Randy and John, looking at each of these young men as they try to figure out how to be happy. Their stories intersect at a dinner party at the home of a middle-aged gay couple, Stephen and Rory. They’re an odd duo, John and Randy: John already a bit jaded in his late twenties, Randy terrified and ignorant about being gay after twenty years of avoidance and suppression. These men reflect two sides of the same coin, a coin very familiar to me in my life all those years ago.

The third, critical, point of view in the book is Violet’s, and Reed’s inclusion of her voice is terribly important in this story. Violet is the only innocent here – other than little Henry, her and Randy’s six-year-old son. Like Randy and John, she has done what was expected of her, but with her whole heart, with no prevarication. She is, oddly enough, the most generous-hearted soul in this tale. Like women of her generation, she is often taken for granted and expected to tow the line by people who feel they know what’s best for her. Reed, fortunately, gives her a kind of inner strength, an agency that, in the end, is the single most important factor in this narrative.

This is the kind of book that comes from a place of personal knowledge, and it resonates with someone like me because of its essential truth. Rick Reed’s books share this sense of basic truth, but “Unraveling” has an extra edge of emotional clarity that hits close to home for my generation.