The Backlot Gay Book Forum discussion

Throwing Hearts
By N.R. Walker
BlueHeart Press, 2020
Four stars

When N.R. Walker sets a novel in her homeland of Australia, everything clicks into place. The appeal of this book is twofold for me, as a retired museum curator and a senior citizen. Merrick Bowman, one of the protagonists, is a potter, in his late twenties, having built up a successful pottery studio/coffee shop in downtown Brisbane. In my work life, I collected and studied studio ceramics for over thirty years, so this is a topic dear to my heart. Secondly, Merrick and his prime emotional interest, Leo Secombe, are paired up with what the Aussies call “oldies,” meaning seniors, which I am myself. The spark between Merrick and Leo is directly connected to their close attachment to two elderly men, men from my generation, who laid all the groundwork for LGBTQ rights from the late 60s to the 1990s.

This could have been forced, but the set-up is charming and believable. Leo, a pretty twenty-something gay guy in retail, has paired up with Clyde, a retired 71-year-old baker, to create an intergenerational bond and to get the lonely, isolated Clyde out of the house. When he signs Clyde up for a pottery class with a group of other elder LGBTQ folks, they meet Merrick, and thence Merrick’s uncle Donny, also lonely and isolated.

If it sounds contrived, it isn’t (well, it’s a novel, so it is, but Walker is a wonderful writer, so it works). As we learn about Clyde and Donny through conversations between the smitten Leo and Merrick—the book is structured in chapters from each of their points of view—the author gives us a big-picture view of the gay world largely ignored in contemporary m/m romance. At first I was a little put off (I mean, my brother is Clyde’s age, and he’s not at all shuffling or lonely or isolated); but as Clyde was revealed to me, I began to realize that his truth is real, that many elder LGBTQ folks are alone, for the same reasons any older people can be alone. In that light, both Leo and Merrick become brighter, kinder, better people in our eyes, because they have chosen to care about the generation before them, the generation that made their lives easier. Australia seems so progressive these days, but it was even more repressive of its LGBTQ population than the USA in the 50s and 60s, and both Clyde and Donny’s plight takes on a greater meaning in that context.

There is very little angst in this book…no vast hurdles to o’erleap, no crushing emotional crises; just an adorable, sexy, heart-warming story with pottery and “Ghost” references. It’s really sort of Hallmark Movie, but a little more porny.

I liked everything about it, showing that even this formulaic genre can be special in the hands of a good writer.