Review: The GUNCLE


This adult fiction review is sneaking in because it encompasses so many of life's most endearing, harrowing and heartbreaking moments in one glorious golden family-orientated glow, that I believe its appeal is further reaching than just as an 'adult read'.  So here we go ...

The hardcover art of this novel portrays a duality of summer nonchalance and flamboyant gaiety, a bit like a freshly shaken frozen margarita. But don’t let that fool you for beyond the dancing title belies a story with substantial heart and a unique poignant jocularity for which author, Steven Rowley is renowned. There is nothing feeble or wanting in The GUNCLE rather it exudes a sticky kind of specialness that adheres to your innards in the most glorious replenishing way, as opposed to a need-to-retch-it-out way.

It's summer in California, a land of 360 days of searing sunshine and infinite possibilities. It’s taken less the four years for former TV sitcom star, Patrick O’Hara to acclimatize and adopt a Palm Springs reclusiveness that no one, least of all himself, understands. When worlds collide and crash following the death of one of his closest companions, Sara, Patrick’s misanthropic existence is shaken to its core with the magnitude of a Force 7 earthquake. Before Sara’s widower aka Patrick’s straight brother, Greg checks himself into rehab, he entrusts Patrick with his two young children; nine-year-old, Maisie and incorrigible six-year-old, Grant. Almost instantly, he assumes the role of gay uncle Patrick, the Guncle aka, GUP.

The kids adopt this moniker with gay abandon, a spark of hilarity in their increasingly bleak lives. With their mother dead and their father absent, the prospect of spending six long summer weeks with an uncle who speaks in showman tongues, spouting one-liners as easily as exhaling only seems to amplify their recent losses. But he does have a pool. And so, the summer of floating about in a lagoon of longing, grieving, reflecting and healing begins.

The GUNCLE, is a fantastical ode to hanging on and letting go, believing in yourself, the intricate anomalies of parenting, being queer in a universe that really doesn’t care but still making the very most out of all that life orchestrates for you. In short, it’s a great fat wad of a love story brimming with humour so bright you’ll need your sunnies and emotions so piercing you might just bleed dry. If this all sounds too maudlin and contrite, be assured it’s not. Rowley’s balance of Patrick as an 80's tragic with next to no comprehension of the contemporary incongruities of Gen Alpha is genius, exuding wide audience appeal. He permits Patrick to apply just the right amount of parental pressure and beautiful sarcastic wordplay to keep you feeling and wanting, laughing and commiserating even.

There is a lot of hurting in this novel. The kids are tragically adrift without their parents. Clara, the third O'Hara sibling, is becoming unmoored, and Patrick is drowning within his unremitting sense of loss. Everyone’s pain resounds with acute authenticity but that doesn’t make this novel less enjoyable or difficult to love, because the moments of hard truths and raw emotions are beautifully tempered with comical joy, like life. We laugh. We cry. We hurt. And with the good grace of an indifferent universe, we heal.

Turns out, spending time with GUP is the best countermeasure for change; facing change head on with change. It’s an invigorating experience I urge you to try, post haste.


Title: The GUNCLE
Author: Steven Rowley
Publisher: Putnam, Penguin Random House, $17.00 USD
Publication Date: April 2022
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 9780525542285
For ages: 17+
Type: Adult Fiction



Buy the Book: Penguin Random House, Boomerang Books (paperback)

 


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