Lay Your Sleeping Head

Okay I've taken couple of days to think about what to write about this book and I'm still awash in emotion.First off you can read this book with no reference at all to [b:The Little Death 17347222 The Little Death (Henry Rios Mystery, #1) Michael Nava https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1361314033s/17347222.jpg 1071848] by the same author. Though nominally a reworking of that book it is in fact completely different. Concerned with different aspects of life. It retains the basic bones of the first book in the same fashion that we are all humans. This is a book about isolation and awakening. About unbearable otherness. About loneliness of the soul and finding recognition in another: “I recognized that tone; it was a signal from one lonely traveler to another. We moved through a world so inescapably and aggressively straight that coming across another gay man in an unexpected circumstance was like stumbling into a refuge where, for a moment, it was possible to lower our shields and breathe.”The story takes place at the cusp of ATM machines, cell phones and AIDS; specifically 1982.Henry Rios is a Public Defender who is already burned out by the age of 32. His awakening comes in the form of Hugh Paris, a “wastrel” from one of the most powerful families in the area who is also their black sheep. Hugh and Henry connect immediately upon meeting on a visceral level: “We caught each other's eyes again and then he said, “You think when you come out, your life will be less lonely, but it isn't. You can find guys for sex. That's easy. Sex is how gay guys shake hands. Don't get me wrong, Henry, I'm not knocking sex. But it costs so much to come out, you'd think there'd be something more at the end of it than another guy's dick. My problem is, I never figured out what that something more is.” “To be loved?” I suggested.I don't think I'm giving anything away when I tell you that the physical Hugh is not long in the book but his presence is the catalyst for Henry's dark knight of the soul and towards the end a sort of rebirth. If well the original book was a standard murder mystery, though very well done and with a gay lead to boot, the murder mystery aspect this time around is less who and more of a why or how. The previous book had its roots in [a:Raymond Chandler 1377 Raymond Chandler https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1206535318p2/1377.jpg] and this story is more [b:Chinatown 310866 Chinatown Robert Towne https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347697815s/310866.jpg 301795]. The previous book lacked sex scenes but this one has a couple that rather than titillate inform and amplify the level of feeling between Henry & Hugh. Beautifully done.What drew me into this story is the almost trance-like meditation going on in Henry's mind. His separateness from society. He's a gay man in a straight world. He's brown skinned. He's Latino. He's the first person in his family with a higher education moving among the wealthiest blue bloods of California. And so he's looking for a place to belong and has maybe found it in Hugh: “What was love anyway? Could two men love each other? The world said anything we called love was a travesty of the real thing. That was a poison fed to us from the moment we became aware we were different and none of us was entirely immune. All of us wrestled with the fear that maybe the world was right, that two men could never be more than their parts and that together they still added up to nothing. What I felt for Hugh told a different story. When we were together, we made something that was more than either had ever been on his own.”The meeting and falling in love/lust for these two is fast and hard and absolutely believable which explains Henry's dogged pursuit of Hugh's killer.For those keeping track of the differences with the previous incarnation of the book I'll say that the character of Hugh is different too. He's harder, more opaque and entirely true to his life experiences. In fact all of the characters are: Terry Ormes is more prominent and Grant Hancock really breaks your heart. I think that is because this iteration of the story of Henry Rios and Hugh Paris is the version told by an older man, one who has lived and is wiser perhaps. If you read both books it's almost as if the first book is a young man telling you a war tale and how in spite of the awful odds he finally prevailed. It reminds you of that other Henry and the St. Crispin Day speech whereas the current telling of the story is from the distance of time passed, sorrow, loss and the knowledge that love alone won't save us. Nonetheless the telling remains hopeful. There's a gauze of mist over this story as it presages all of the shattered dreams, lives of young men lost and love that couldn't be.What I loved about the character of Henry is that in spite of everything he never doubts his right to be happy and love whom he will: “You grow up and everyone around you tells you how it's supposed to be, how it's gonna be, but then, for you, it's different. The question is, how different? And now I know. It isn't different at all. People fall in love. ... Men with women, women with women, men with men. People.”I recommend this wholeheartedly and that cover is swoon worthy.