All it took to destroy Andy Nocera's seemingly perfect life was an anonymous tryst at an Interstate rest area. Sentenced to probation and thrown out by his wife, he spends his week as a traveling salesman, and his weekends at his mother's house where no questions are asked—and no explanations are offered.
To clear his record, the State of North Carolina requires Andy to complete one year of therapy without another arrest. He attends his sessions reluctantly at first, struggling to comprehend why he would risk everything. Answers don't come easily, especially in the face of his mother’s sudden illness and his repeated failure to live as an openly gay man. But as Andy searches his past, he gets an opportunity to rescue another lost soul—and a chance at a future that is different in every way from the one he had envisioned.
Review
Andy Nacera had a life in which all seemed perfect but all that was destroyed when he had anonymous sex at a rest area on the interstate. His wife threw him out and he was put on probation and his life changed completely. During the week he is a traveling salesman and on weekends he spends at his mother's house and noting is discussed or explained about the incident.
This is one of the most unusual books I have ever read. It combines sadness, wit, family and love to give us a very human story that takes us to a dark place and we witness Andy as he discovers himself and then uses what he learns for transformation. We are with him as he finds passion and love and how he redeems himself and finds acceptance. We cheer for him when he learns how to live.
When Andy was convicted he received a sentence of a year's probation and a year of therapy during which time he could not be arrested again. At first, he does not understand how he risked everything for a few moments of furtive sex and he cannot seem to understand how he allowed himself to reach that point. Things became more and more difficult for him, especially when his mother became ill. He does serious soul searching and finally reaches the place when he can save another life as well as his own and this changes his future. The novel is actually composed of two themes--a coming-out story and a look at family. During Andy's counseling sessions with a Jesuit priest, he finds that he cannot get answers and he is constantly wondering how one anonymous sexual encounter could change his life so drastically.
There were three women in Andy's life--his wife, his mother and his sister and each reacts to Andy's arrest differently. Andy is just a regular guy who, like all of us, has a tragic flaw and that seems to be his love for the kind of sex he as arrested for--like something that we see going on with public officials in the U.S. today. It is the destructive forces that play on his life that he had spent hiding who and what he really was.
This is a powerful first novel from Tom Mendicino and I suspect that we shall be hearing more form him. He creates characters that are real and he enters their minds and shows us what is going on there. Andy is a man who ruined his own life (so he feels) but we are with him as he fights his way back to redemption.
Andy Nocera faces a catastrophic change in his quiet, suburban married life, when he is caught having gay sex at a North Carolina highway rest stop. Fired from his job, and thrown out by his wife, he finds himself moving in with his mother, who (literally) bailed him out after his arrest, and arranges with the court for probation conditional on attending regular counseling sessions with a psychiatrist who also happens to be a Jesuit priest.
This first time novelist hits a home run with this multi-layered story of a gay man coming of age and finally accepting his own sexuality, after two decades of trying to convince himself he could be a "normal" husband and father. While trying to salvage what is left of his dwindling self-respect and ambition, his character tries to reconcile with estranged relatives, and is forced to face his own mortality in dealing with his mother's lymphoma diagnosis, while wondering if his infidelity sentences him to a lifetime devoid of finding true love and happiness. A powerful, emotional, well-written story, which I strongly recommend,
Excellent debut novel from a talented author
