Safe As Houses: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful, lyrical tale of life, love, and family.
Review: Alex Jeffers has written a wonderful, lyrical taleof life, love, and family. The themes of the book -- deafness, gay parenthood, and illness -- are interwoven with a quiet, warm story about two men struggling to build a faimly in a world which does not acknowledge their right to parenthood. Through the eyes of Allen, we watch his father and mother, both deaf, struggle to survive in a world which does not wish to accomodate them. Once Allen has grown up and moved away from home, he meets Jeremy, a tall, handsome man who is raising his son alone. Together, Jeremy and Allen strive too raise and protect Jeremy's son.

Rating:
Summary: A beautifully written, wonderful book
Review: Alex Jeffers' wonderful book is an idyll, perhaps a fantasy, certainly a 'blast of the trumpet' against the family values folks who cling to the stale notion that only mixed-gender households can know love or raise well-adjusted kids.

A fantasy, perhaps, because how many families are as happy and communicative as this one? How many sixteen-year-old boys remain affectionate friends of their dads? But it's not impossible, I suppose, and even the possibility that somewhere such families may exist is something to celebrate.

An idyll, because as Allen battles AIDS (we learn that he's got KS on page two), he chooses for the sporadic journal entries that comprise the book only the good memories.

A blast against the conservatives, because with writing this good, how could anyone deny the truth of the portrait?

Is it a sad book? For his two sons, especially the younger, his eventual death will be a terrible loss. But should we grieve for Allen himself? That's a much tougher question that the book asks. Does it get any better, any happpier, than the life Allen describes for us? We'll all die someday, as Allen's father reminds him. And if we've lived in bliss, do we call it a tragedy because our bliss isn't eternal?

Or do we consider by way of contrast that many of the gay men born in the late 40's and during the 50's who are still alive survived because they spent the 70's and 80's in the closet. And with their cohort so diminished by the epidemic, many will never find the happiness that Allen tells us of. These men bought their lives at the expense of love.

So we have an old, old conundrum, the modern form of the choice Achilles is forced to make in The Iliad: a brief, glorious life or a long, dull one. I don't know the answer. But Jeffers gives us a hero for our times and shows us how we can celebrate a life rather than mourn a death.

This is an achingly beautiful book. Read it.

Rating:
Summary: A beautifully written, wonderful book
Review: Alex Jeffers' wonderful book is an idyll, perhaps a fantasy, certainly a 'blast of the trumpet' against the family values folks who cling to the stale notion that only mixed-gender households can know love or raise well-adjusted kids.

A fantasy, perhaps, because how many families are as happy and communicative as this one? How many sixteen-year-old boys remain affectionate friends of their dads? But it's not impossible, I suppose, and even the possibility that somewhere such families may exist is something to celebrate.

An idyll, because as Allen battles AIDS (we learn that he's got KS on page two), he chooses for the sporadic journal entries that comprise the book only the good memories.

A blast against the conservatives, because with writing this good, how could anyone deny the truth of the portrait?

Is it a sad book? For his two sons, especially the younger, his eventual death will be a terrible loss. But should we grieve for Allen himself? That's a much tougher question that the book asks. Does it get any better, any happpier, than the life Allen describes for us? We'll all die someday, as Allen's father reminds him. And if we've lived in bliss, do we call it a tragedy because our bliss isn't eternal?

Or do we consider by way of contrast that many of the gay men born in the late 40's and during the 50's who are still alive survived because they spent the 70's and 80's in the closet. And with their cohort so diminished by the epidemic, many will never find the happiness that Allen tells us of. These men bought their lives at the expense of love.

So we have an old, old conundrum, the modern form of the choice Achilles is forced to make in The Iliad: a brief, glorious life or a long, dull one. I don't know the answer. But Jeffers gives us a hero for our times and shows us how we can celebrate a life rather than mourn a death.

This is an achingly beautiful book. Read it.

Rating:
Summary: A touching story about an "alternative" family
Review: Safe as Houses was a very enjoyable read for me. I was very touched by the love that two homosexual men have for their "family". In fact, this "alternative" family seemed to be more normal than the regular man-woman unit.

Rating:
Summary: A touching story about an "alternative" family
Review: Safe as Houses was a very enjoyable read for me. I was very touched by the love that two homosexual men have for their "family". In fact, this "alternative" family seemed to be more normal than the regular man-woman unit.