Funnily enough I meant to read a different book called Only Love Can Break Your Heart, but I ended up with this one and I read through it anyways. It wasn’t a bad read, but it didn’t really stick out to me either. A solid, middle-of-the-road work, which we always need some of those.
Our narrator is Richard, or Rocky for short. It starts with him as a child with his mother, father that he only calls “the Old Man”, and a troublemaker brother Paul. In particular there is one instance where Paul and Rocky go to investigate an abandoned house across the street and Rocky sees someone creep in and shoot Paul. That turns out to be the wealthy new owner of the place. Paul recovers, and Rocky tells how he starts dating Leigh in high school and they all hang out and listen to records together. Eventually, Paul’s mom (from Old Man’s first marriage) dies and he goes to the funeral alone. After that Paul disappears, taking Leigh with him. Leigh eventually reappears, but no sign of Paul. Leigh gets engaged to the son of the family across the street, and meanwhile Rocky starts a friendship with Patricia, the daughter of the new owners across the street. Their relationship turns sexual. It comes crashing down then when Leigh confides to Rocky that she had a hippie wedding to Paul in a cult commune in New Mexico where the leader was also sleeping with everyone, including molesting kids. Leigh came back and had an abortion immediately. Rocky tells Patricia, word gets out, and the wedding ends in disaster with Leigh having a mental crisis in the middle of it. To top it off, Old Man has a stroke at the reception.
Leigh returns and starts reading to the elderly in town, including Old Man. Her ex-fiancee leaves town for a while, along with Patricia. Paul amazingly returns out of nowhere, and starts to help around the house now that money is tight. Rocky manages to get kicked out of his rich school in an attempt to help as well. Suddenly there’s a double murder across the street of the couple in there. Everyone suspects Paul and Leigh. Meanwhile Rocky gets back into acting and is cast as the lead in “Equus”, a play about a lovesick stable boy and his horse god. Patricia accidentally incriminates herself to Leigh and skips town to avoid being arrested, but those two are off the hook. Patricia writes Rocky a letter saying her father was taking advantage of her, and that’s why that happened. Rocky grows up, Old Man eventually dies, and the book ends with Paul marrying Leigh and dying as well.
The genre of this is hard to pin down, some sort of Southern gothic for sure, but there’s a small murder mystery as well. Definitely coming-of-age too. It is a cool mix that really keeps you reading for sure. Patricia frustrated me to no end, but having Paul and Leigh as constants really helps. And gives you something to root for. I found it to be an easy read overall.
The best part of the book is the play. When Rocky describes opening night, the actors all get swept up in the energy of it and Rocky really becomes this character. But even in the embodiment, he acknowledges that this is really Paul he is playing. The outcast, maligned son fits him even better. I loved the use of the play and the overlap of it with the characters and how the play falls right at the climax where Paul is actually in jail and Patricia is just being suspected. It is a great use of the story.
Overall, fun and easy read. I didn’t mean to pick it up but
I sure don’t regret it.
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