NancyKay Shapiro What Love Means to You People

What Love Means to You People

NancyKay Shapiro

Dunne, Mar 2006, $23.95

ISBN: 0312347898

Twenty-three years old Cornhusker Seth McKenna fled Nebraska for New York to allegedly make it as an artist, but more so to escape the memory of his stepfather raping him and his deeply religious fundamentalist mother did nothing to protect him or his sis. Seth meets forty-two years old wealthy executive Jim Glaser, who mourns the loss of his long time significant other Zak.

Both silently feel the age gap is too great though they are attracted to one another. Besides Seth, who paints a Norman Rockwell childhood to describe his Midwestern past to his new friend, deep in his psyche he does not feel worthy of a nice man like Jim. On the other hand Jim struggles too because he feels he is betraying his first love Zak. As the duo becomes acquainted, Seth's sister Cassie arrives in Manhattan having run away. She is stunned to learn her brother is gay and even more shocked that the man he loves is old enough to be her father. Still she is accepting and her sibling and his lover agree to raise her child while she seeks a new life overseas. However, Seth's web of deceit unravels hurting Jim to the core as he wonders if he can trust this stranger.

Though the climatic road to redemption seems excessively affected, this is a terrific modern day character driven romance starring two likable protagonists carrying excessive baggage. If Jim was June, no reader would think twice about WHAT LOVE MEANS TO YOU PEOPLE. That is the underlying beauty of this terrific tale that it does not matter that the relationship is between two homosexual males as Cassie quickly understands; it is the love that matters. Seth's past and Jim's grief add to a wonderful insightful contemporary drama.

Harriet Klausner