I purchased this book, which was published by Lethe Press in January 2009 and is available in e and paper editions, in November last year for my “8 Days of Ham/mukah” celebration of m/m romance. I had a hard time reading 8 books in 8 days, let alone reviewing them, and put this one aside. I brought it on a road trip from Maine to the midwest earlier this month, and by the time we got to Niagara Falls, I pretty much didn’t want to get out of the car if it meant I had to stop reading this book, 150,000 gallons of water per second be damned.

If you are sick of historical romance referring only to 1810-1820 London, and only to the upper classes, sick of m/m romance referring only to erotic romance, sick of lengthy, explicit sex scenes wedged into your historical romance in places they don’t belong, sick of authors telegraphing every interesting, potentially conflict-creating aspect of a character on the first page (i.e. Character development for idiots with attention deficits), then you will enjoy this breath of fresh air.

Here’s the blurb:

New York, 1919. His career as a concert pianist ended by a war injury, Sutton Albright returns to college, only to be expelled after an affair with a teacher. Unable to face his family, he heads to New York with no plans and little money–only a desire to call his life his own.

Jack Bailey’s life has changed as well. After losing his parents in the influenza epidemic, he hopes to save their beloved novelty shop–now his–by advertising on the radio, barely more than a novelty, itself.

Sutton lands work in Jack’s corner of the city and the two conclude they couldn’t be less suited for friendship. But when Sutton loses his job, Jack gives him a place to stay. Sutton returns to the piano to play for Jack and finds the intervening months have healed him. The program promises to rescue Jack’s business and Sutton’s career…but success brings its own risks for two men falling in love.

This blurb does what blurbs are supposed to do, but it doesn’t communicate at all how slowly the story unfolds or how richly the setting is developed. When the book begins, Sutton is being awakened by a pounding on his mice infested 41st street hotel room’s door. He’s kicked out, and ends up, after wandering around a public park on a rainy night, in jail for the night. The next morning, down to his last nickel, he nurses the past dregs of his diner coffee, practically begging the waitress for work. We know he’s low, but we don’t know why. We know he comes from money, that his heart was broken back home, and that he’s just returned from the war.

As we come to know him, we find that Sutton is kind, even tempered, sensible, and infused with the optimism of a young man who has lived a life of privilege. And he’s transparent. As Jack says, “How you feel always shines right out.” Sutton’s struggle is figuring out how to be a good man, a good son, a good lover, in a world completely changed by both political and personal events. He wants to make the right decisions, but how? He thinks:

It would be so much easier if life provided sheet music to help him make sense of its dynamics–or even a few notations for finding the most harmonious chords. But life refused to oblige. He could only improvise.

When Sutton is sent on an errand to Bailey’s Emporium next door, he meets a whole new cast of characters. There’s Ox, a good hearted brute, and Harry, the accountant/manager, and others. Jack is the owner of the shop, which he inherited from his parents. Jack also fought in the war, and unlike Sutton;s physical injuries, his are psychological. Jack is irrepressible, a live wire, impulsive, cynical in some ways but boyishly eager in others, an enthusiastic party boy, with a darkness inside caused by the loss of his parents, his hard scrabble life since then, and his war wounds.

The conflict between Sutton and Jack is nothing new: Jack is afraid of commitment, and doesn’t believe, deep down, that he deserves unconditional love. This is typical of his view on life:

“A fellow can’t have everything.” Jack stuffed his hands in his pockets to ward away the chill. “Win something you want and you can be sure the next day you’ll lose something you have. It’s getting so I don’t want to wish for anything else.”

The fact that Sutton is the son of a wealthy industrialist only gives external validation to Jack’s lack of a sense of self-worth. Sutton’s issues have more to do with finding his place in the world after his dreams of becoming a concert pianist were dashed by the war. Jack and Sutton begin an affair, and Allen effectively communicates the intense sexual attraction between them, without opening the bedroom door to the reader.

Often readers who like gay male romance will say they appreciate not having to worry about gender politics in their romance reading, and I never understood that until I read this book. Sutton comes to see that finding a lasting love, a life partner, is the key to his happiness. He really is sort of content to bask in the unpredictable fireworks show that is Jack, to help Jack achieve his dreams, to support him in his recovery from the war, to just be a lover in the truest sense of the word, almost as an avocation. I think if Sutton had been a woman, this might have troubled me. But I found it very moving in a male character.

Here’s how that kind of love looks to Jack:

Jack hadn’t thought of love as a promise before–a promise that, even when the world was falling down around him, would stay kept. But without Sutton saying a word, he knew that there would be comfort when he couldn’t sleep tonight. And tomorrow and the day after, there would be a home to go to, even if it was no more than a pair of arms around him and a head tucked close to his in the darkness.

On the other hand, these guys don’t have heart to hearts. They communicate like men often do — wordlessly, saying more by what they don’t say. I hate romances, whether m/f or m/m, when a very masculine male character starts saying things at the end that would never come out of that guy’s mouth. Dr. Phil talk. Oprah talk. Not just flowery talk, but depth psychology talk that suggests a level of self-analysis that is totally foreign to these  live-in-the-moment men.

One thing I noticed was that the tone tended to be very similar from page one to page last, or maybe I mean the pacing felt very regimented. I think I may have been looking for more drama in the dramatic scenes, even if the characters themselves tended to shy away from it.

But this was an incredibly sweet, romantic story, made even better by the fascinating cast of characters Allen develops, including Jack’s ramshackle “family” and his slick night owl friends. From diners to jazz clubs, to back alley fisticuffs, to impromptu bicycle rides to the dump, to makeshift concerts in the crowded curio shop staffed by a live alligator, to heavies trying to control the neighborhood, I was fully immersed in this world and glad to be there.

All proceeds from the sale of this book go to leukemia research.