Probation by Tom Mendicino

Here's a challenge - review a first novel, written by an old friend. A novel that is getting raves from major venues, praise that could go to the head of a man whose birthday is not referred to as "Mendomass."

There is one glaring irony, it brings me back to earth, and I keep running across it every time I read about the book. Probation keeps being referred to as The Next Big Thing of Southern Literature. Now, call me silly, but I thought Southern Lit was in general the product of Southern authors, and Tom's about as Southern as I am , oh - Canadian, which is to say, not at all. Further, the story is in no way that I could tell informed by its placement in North Carolina. There is truly zero local flavor - the events could have been taking place in Omaha and there would be little to no difference in the general feel of the book.

That's my big complaint. And I am aware that placing it in North Carolina did allow for an inside joke or three to be buried in the text. I do wish he had placed it in a part of the state where he had actually lived, and included more local flavor.

In a larger way, it doesn't matter. It could have happened anywhere because it happens everywhere, and the geography that matters is interior to Andy, to Andy's families, the one he was born into and the one tried to build with Alice.

I have one favorite quote and one favorite scene, both involving Alice. Here is the quote:

I kept my promise, Alice. I never told you I stopped loving you because I never did.

You asked the wrong question.

You should have made me promise to tell you if I ever fell in love with someone else.

My favorite scene is the trip Andy makes back to the house he shared with Alice, to pick up the personal possessions she has carefully packed for him, having sold the house. He slowly explores the rooms that were once the spaces that defined his home are now an arrangement of empty boxes waiting for someone else to lmake life in them. Eventually, Andy decides to take only a couple of particular items, but only after he lies down on the carpet in the place where he slept next to Alice for eleven years and falls asleep.

They're my favorites because they touch me deeply, in a place where I keep a few special memories of my own.

The story line reads like truth, like blood right out of the vein, and his uniquely dark sense of humor runs through every paragraph, making reading even the most difficult passages something that is possible, even, at times, enjoyable.

I knew Tom was smart. I didn't know he is a genius.

[caption id="attachment_1018" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Tom Mendicino"][/caption]

If this book had a theme song, it would be "Sober" by Pink. Andy Nocera (the protagonist) has spent his entire life trying to hide who and what he really is from everyone - including himself, it's a kind of addiction, the lying, the hiding, the rush of the fear of discovery. The change that comes into his life isn't just that he loses his wife, his job, his lack of criminal record, it's also that he doesn't really have to hide anymore. Can't hide, really.

That which was extraordinary, secret, sneaky and therefore either fraught with fear (see The Long Red Snake), or the thrill of newness and wondering if you'll ever see him again - that's mostly gone. New relationships can be had more or less in the open, and if not in the open at least not in the bathroom at a rest stop.

The chemistry has changed. Now, Andy has the potential to have an adult, mature, real relationship that suits who he is and what he is and what he wants out of life.

No wonder Andy spends half the novel being pissed off. The high is gone. Normal has arrived. Andy has to learn how to feel good with the sexual equivalent of sobriety.

Please be aware before you pick up this book that it is not an intellectual exercise in the potentiality of being or not being homosexual. The discussion is not Platonic, it is real-world, and the sexual encounters are graphically described, with an economy that's actually reminiscent of Hemingway. There are no frills, fanfare, or long, lingering looks. Just the mechanics. I have to tell you I found it completely non-arousing.

In fact, the whole book is reminiscent of Hemingway, if Hemingway had been any good.

There should also be a short word of caution. In my mind, In and Out is the movie version of coming out that is the cinematic equivalent of Gone with the Wind in terms of being an accurate portrayal of plantation life in Georgia before, during and immediately after the American Civil War. Both are not merely fiction, they're fantasy. (And being surprise kissed by Tom Selleck is probably not unlike being surprise kissed by Clark Gable, now that I think about it.)

But I digress.

Probation is much closer to reality, said the female reviewer who has no idea whatsoever how it is to come out as a 40-year old, married, gay man, especially in the newspapers and in an unplanned and uncontrolled way. The closest I could come to it is the way my mother found out I was smoking cigarettes. (The smoke pouring out around the edges the bedside table drawer was a dead give away.) That said, I wouldn't want a random 18-year-old struggling with his own sexuality (and what 18-year old doesn't, gay or straight?) to read Probation and think that sure that first year is gonna be rough but coming out to everyone will eventually be essentially painless, mostly cost-free and anyone who can't cope is just too much of an asshole to be bothered with in the first place.

Being forced out of the closet cost Andy Nocera everything he had, yes, everything, including the relationship he'd had until that time with his mother. That she didn't spurn him, that she stood up for him and made sure everyone else fell into line according to her wishes doesn't mean the relationship didn't experience significant change.

Or maybe she knew all along, and Andy was the one doing the catching up.

Andy doesn't spend time boring us with endless soul-searching, there are no long, rambling inner quests for the truth. Andy is no extravagantly emotional, blood-all-over-the-carpet, hysterical stereotype fag. It's all sheer description, place whatever value on the actions and events you like. There's a raw vulnerability to this approach: "Here's what I did. Here's who I am. Think whatever you want about it."

In Probation, fact trumps each and every time. Notice it's fact that rumps, not Truth, which is a much slipperier thing, but facts are what they are, you cant' change them, and in Andy Nocera, we've been given a heroic everyman, who happens to be gay, and learns mid-life to look fact in the eye and give it a big, wet kiss.