The Letter Z by Marie Sexton
It was not easy to like this novella, at least for me: it goes against what is my personal belief, but as usual, I would like to highlight that it’s MY attitude and not the right one, we are all different and the beauty of life is exactly that diversity.
Actually in the story there is one couple that behaves like me, Matt and Jared, and one that approaches life, and love, in a different way, Angelo and Zach. During a New Year’s party at Jared and Matt’s house, Angelo meets Cole, Jared’s former buddy friend, and Matt’s nemesis, since he was Jared’s previous lover. As soon as Angelo sees Cole, sparks fly between them, but Angelo at first doesn’t want to follow his instinct since he is with Zach, he loves Zach and doesn’t want to ruin that. To his, and my, surprise, the same Zach tells Angelo that is right if he wants to have a fling with Cole, provided that it will be only a sex thing, no feeling involved, and that he will be back home to him as soon as it will be ended.
Where Zach and Angelo are perfectly consistent in their agreement, Jared is not of the same disposition, and a curtain of cold descends between them; at first I thought it was jealousy, even if Jared is no more interested in Cole, maybe he doesn’t want to see him with someone else; then I thought it was Jared’s closed mind, that maybe he was not able to see that the agreement between Zach and Angelo could work. In the end I think it was some sort of insecurity, that Jared feared something like that could happen to Matt and him, and he was not sure to be able to accept that.
The story is told in two point of view, from Angelo and Matt; I like that it weren’t the main characters, Angelo and Jared to tell it, since in this way we had an “insight” and “outsight” point of view, Angelo totally involved, and Matt more a spectator. I like also that we were able to see two different couples and their different approaches to a relationship: in the end, the author proves that both of them are right, there is not bad and good, only different way to see sex and love, and both of them are right for the couple who chooses it.
Actually this novella is like an essay on gay couples, as they see a relationship between two men, as they see themselves in relation to the outside world, what they find sexy and what is absolutely out of question.
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=1821
Amazon Kindle: The Letter Z
Series:
1) Promises: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/937139.html
2) A to Z: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1005738.html
3) The Letter Z
Reading List:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle
Cover Art by Anne Cain