Back Where He Started By Jay Quinn
Alyson Publications, 2005

One of my best friends has a comeback line that I’ve grown quite fond of. If I playfully call him a slut, for example, he’ll respond with “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Many reviewers have called Back Where He Started a romance. And my response to them is: “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

It’s not a bad thing. Back Where He Started is unabashedly a romance. It’s too easy for serious readers to dismiss romances. Depending on what source you consult, 50% to 65% of all paperbacks sold are romances. People want romance, people read romance, people buy romance. The continuing success of Danielle Steele, Nora Roberts, and Janet Daily is proof.

It’s true that readers have to suspend disbelief to accept the plot of a romance. It’s also true that many of the subplots in Back Where He Started are tied up a little too tidily. But I contend that that is the nature of romance writing. I argue that realistic, contemporary romances are actually difficult to write because the writer has to convince the reader that this really could happen. For the writer it’s a balancing act. In my opinion, Jay Quinn succeeds.

A rhetorical question: Why is it easier for readers to accept an orphaned British boy who becomes a wizard than a contemporary romance?

Back Where He Started is really much more than a romance. Jay Quinn has crafted some lovely descriptive passages that are worthy of comparison to other contemporary Southern writers. He’s given the main character, Chris, a clear voice, wit, insight and a sense of humor. The narrative also contains an extended think piece about the meaning of family and home.

It’s also quite a timely topic what with the national debate about gay marriage. While there are no figures for gay marriage, 50% of all straight marriages end in divorce. The story follows Chris through the aftermath of the breakup of his 22-year relationship with Zach.

When we join the story, Chris is packing up the house he has lived in for 22 years with his partner, Zach Ronan. When Chris and Zach first meet, Zach has recently been widowed as a result of his wife’s suicide and is raising three young children, Trey, Andrea and Schooner on his own. Chris immediately takes to the children, and to Zach, and moves into the ornate Italianate house he is preparing to leave. His children appear, one by one, to take the things they want from the place. Zach has generously given Chris a settlement of guilt money but his gift has strings.

Zach also attempts to pick a fight and we see that they have still have more issues than National Geographic. It would appear that Zach is not finished causing trouble for Chris and they argue. Their tiff ends when Zach regrettably slaps him causing a split lip. The split lip is one of my problems with the book; more about this later.

Despite his poor beginnings raised by a single mother in the Fairview Homes, Chris has lifted himself up by the bootstraps by constant reading and an associate’s degree. Chris is a marvelous parent to the extent that the three kids he raised call him “mom”, a term he readily applies to himself.

Chris has done very well for himself, courtesy of Zach’s guilt money, as he moves into his new beach house filled with designer furniture. And along with the physical act of moving, there are the emotional changes as he moves into a new chapter of his life. Chris redefines his relationships with his three beloved children and with Zach. He also tentatively puts down new roots in his new town. He begins to discover his new neighbors, has a fling with a local vet, establishes himself in a new Catholic parish, finds a job as a receptionist-slash-secretary, and hooks up with a crusty and difficult fisherman and dog breeder from whom he gets a new puppy.

It’s true that his new employer is too accepting, even to the point of asking about asking about Chris’ new romantic interest. The parish priest readily accepts him, too, which stretches the concept of belief suspension to the limit. The Catholic Church has sinfully veered even further away from acceptance in the time since the book was published and it has been my experience that most parish priests would never be so accepting. But I could continue with the book because I cared about the characters and wanted to see what the outcome would be and because of Quinn’s mastery of the language.

I like the fact that Quinn has filled the story with rich details. For example, his characters are never just sitting around talking. (In my observations, people never just sit around and talk without doing something with their hands, unless they’re sitting with a mental health professional whom they have paid to sit still and listen.) The characters are always fiddling with something; food, drinks, cigarettes mostly. He describes light beautifully and reverently, whether it’s the light through a window or from the sky. His description of the places in his new neighborhood caused vivid mental images. His dialog is realistic and finely crafted, if a bit overlong at times and filled with sappy Southern endearments often including the word ‘baby’. Chris never just puts on a CD; we know what he’s listening to. That’s good writing.

I also like the fact that Quinn helps us understand the inner lives of his characters without resorting to psychobabble. He shows us rather than tells us through dialog and actions. Chris is acutely aware of his emotions and the effect of the ‘divorce’ from Zach on the three adult children. He refuses to be bitter or regretful even though Zach baits him from time to time. Chris knows he has Zach’s generosity to thank for his new life in his beautiful new beach house.

Back Where He Started is a cheerful, sunny antidote to the dark, brooding and depressing gay fiction that seems so – unfortunately – prevalent these days.

Yup, Back is a romance. Yup, the reader has to suspend disbelief a bit in order to accept the premise of the story. But I ask again: If we can accept the concept that a teenage boy can attend a school for wizards and play a game on hovering broomsticks, why can’t we accept a contemporary romance where the parish priest welcomes a gay parishioner into his congregation?

It’s a romance. Don’t say that like it’s a bad thing. Suspend your disbelief and read it.

Four Stars out of Five