{"id":719,"date":"2018-12-31T13:38:21","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T13:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=719"},"modified":"2018-12-31T13:38:21","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T13:38:21","slug":"lone-star-book-reviewsby-michelle-newby-nbcccontributing-editor-72","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=719","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star Book ReviewsBy Michelle Newby, NBCCContributing Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span>Michelle Newby<\/span> is contributing editor at Lone Star Literary Life, reviewer for Kirkus, <\/span>freelance writer, member of the National Book Critics Circle, blogger at www.TexasBookLover.com, and a moderator at the 20th annual Texas Book Festival. Her reviews appear in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, World Literature Today, High Country News, South85 Journal, The Review Review, Concho River Review, Monkeybicycle, Mosaic Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, <\/span>and The Collagist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lone Star Book Reviews
of Texas books appear weekly
at LoneStarLiterary.com<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n
\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/span>POLITICAL FICTION\/GAY FICTION<\/p>\n

Christopher Kelly<\/span><\/p>\n

The Pink Bus<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Lethe Press<\/p>\n

Paperback, 978-1-59021-613-2 (also available as an ebook), 276 pgs., $20.00<\/p>\n

May 18, 2016<\/p>\n

Patrick Francis Monaghan, the first out gay man to run for the United States Senate from Texas <\/span>(\u201cHomosexualis Texas Politicus \u2013 something exotic or endangered\u201d), steps out onto the front porch of the Fort Worth Stockyard Museum and is shot. As he lies there, in and out of consciousness, he ponders the \u201ccosmic cruelty that here he was dying\u2014at age forty, just when he had found what had eluded him for so long, a place in the world.\u201d Monaghan experiences a series of flashbacks from his life, beginning in kindergarten at P.S. 42 in Staten Island, New York, where he was called \u201cPeppermint Patty\u201d by the other kids, an \u201cepithet [that] would stick to him like gum in a girl\u2019s long hair.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pink Bus <\/span><\/a><\/span>by Lambda award winner Christopher Kelly<\/span> is fine literary fiction. It\u2019s funny and melancholic in turn, but always ambitious and original. Kelly is a multitalented writer. He\u2019s equally at home with humor, pathos, and political commentary\u2014sometimes in the same sentence. After the shooting, the \u201cAmerican public was shocked, dismayed, for a few days, deeply ashamed of itself.\u201d This is not easy to do, folks.<\/p>\n

Kelly makes good use of the history of assassination and attempted assassination in the United States, beginning with John F. Kennedy and working backward to Abraham Lincoln, with a sobering nod to Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy, Gabrielle Giffords, et al., prompting reflection on our reliance on violence to solve disputes. \u201cThis is American history\u2019s prescription,\u201d Kelly writes, \u201cif your wish is to irrevocably silence a man.\u201d It is shocking to be reminded that four American presidents have been assassinated.<\/p>\n

This engaging narrative is quick and steady, moving back and forth from the present to turning points in Monaghan\u2019s past, switching third-person perspectives between Monaghan and Nora Meacham, \u201chis best friend, his toughest critic, his walking, talking bullshit detector.\u201d Friends since college, Meacham is also his campaign manager. Their friendship is complicated; they suspect they are soul mates, but a sexual relationship is out of the question.<\/p>\n

Monaghan has conducted a lifelong struggle against gay clich\u00e9s. There is so much more to him than his sexuality, and he doesn\u2019t want to be defined by that single fact. \u201cI want people to respect and understand me as a gay person,\u201d he says, \u201cbut not define me as one. Is that too subtle a distinction to understand?\u201d Kelly is outstanding at simultaneously depicting Monaghan\u2019s outrage and emotional vulnerability.<\/p>\n

Kelly evokes the sensitive, anxious child Monaghan who always knew he was gay, who became an adolescent terrified of exposure. At fourteen, he thinks he should \u201cstop being afraid and start demanding justice.\u201d Finally, at forty, he does. \u201cThe wheel turns slowly, but gloriously it turns.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michelle Newby is contributing editor at Lone Star Literary Life, reviewer for Kirkus, freelance writer, member of the National Book Critics Circle, blogger at www.TexasBookLover.com, and a moderator at the 20th annual Texas Book Festival. Her reviews appear in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, World Literature Today, High Country News, South85 Journal, The Review Review, Concho […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}