The Night We Met

Archive: Gay Themed

Leafing through stacks of recently bought gay fiction (at my used bookshop) I can't say why I took The Night We Met home. The cover photo - taller darker (butcher?) man who looks almost painfully heterosexual looking over his shoulder at a shorter younger (less butch?) blond who seems fresh from his porn screen test - was really off-putting. I'm not sure if it was a sense of clichés or of mediocre stock photography cut together.

And the plot suggested it had been written to be turned into a movie: minor white-collar worker, author manqué meets closeted young scion of Mafioso. They fall in love and many plot complications ensue combining hilarity and suspense.

It was all that but I read all of it anyway. Rob Byrnes fulfilled the two requirements of even successful commercial farce. The narrative voice has to be consistent and the convolutions of the plot have to move quickly enough to keep you from considering their implausibility.

Not sure how well I'll remember the book a year from now. I guess it is what people call "beach reading" meaning trash to fill time. The Night We Met was as entertaining as the Rob Rodi books I've read. If you want a silly fluffy narrative about two guys falling for each other complete with a happy ending I can't think why you wouldn't enjoy this.

Noted later:

Rob has the dust jacket of his next book, Trust Fund Boys, up on his weblog.(Personal aside: Although the guy on the cover doesn't resemble them some of the sweetest silly boys I knew in my youth were trust fund boys. Unlike the selfish glamorosi of movies and TV they were anything but able to take care of themselves)