They can't all be hits
Well, my trend of finding a good read by just picking a random item off the shelf at the front of the library finally hit a wall. I grabbed We Burned so Bright, and while about 30 pages into it, I really wanted to get into it and like the book but never got there. The cover had a cool camper, it was a disaster scenario and the author was doing a great job of communicating what a same sex relationship was like, which I know very little about and it was interesting.
The story
We Burned So Bright starts with the author wants us to accept a pretty weird world. We're on Earth, a black hole is going to consume us… soon-ish… and society sort of has fallen apart but somehow people do have working cars and bake for their neighbors.
I'm sure its a little informed by COVID, and heck I can do this TJ.
The book follows an elderly gay couple Don and Rodney as they journey to finish some unknown important trip to the west coast before we're all burnt up or squished into a splotch. They travel through the US and encounter some cool scenes. They marry a couple and also share their story with a young lesbian couple. This sort of sharing of how culture is for the gay community was awesome. I see it but its interesting to hear it from someone who lives it. The author even has this on the cover that he thinks this is important. We learn about some of the history that a 70 year old in the US may remember about HIV, that frankly we gloss over and don't tell the kids today just like we don't talk about our imperialism in absolute sense. Like how we gloss over the hundreds of thousands of civilians we nuked to end world war two. I absolutely agree and enjoyed this part of the author's storytelling.
The part where the book loses me is the quest. Its fairly obvious midway through the book it is some sort of adopted son. Towards the end we find out that he was disturbed teen and adult that eventually overdosed and died. The couple is spreading his ashes at a campsite they went to when he was younger.
This side story just was too divergent from the main plot for me. I do agree and think its great to talk about how our adoption system is flawed here and how drug treatment and crime are poorly handled.
But…
It was too fucking much. I flew through the final chapters. The dual tragedy was interesting but it really just took me out of the tail end of the book. Maybe I need to try another of the author's books but this is something I've had in film recently too. The sense of too much. Part of good art is not saying everything and not covering every thought. Subtlety and depth rather than being super explicit and covering the entire decade of culture. I'm not saying its a bad book. But I did not enjoy it. Perhaps I'm a simple creature. Perhaps just a different sort of creature than the author.
Until next time!