A SELF-PORTRAIT IN THE YEAR OF THE HIGH COMMISSION ON LOVE

In 1980s Texas, two young men bond over their love of literature.

To grow up in Texas with the name Jon Wain likely makes being nicknamed “Duke” inevitable. So it is with the narrator of Biespiel’s novel, who ponders desire, literature, and his best friend, Manolo Salazar, as he looks back on their youth. Much of the novel follows the two friends over a handful of days in 1981, when they're 18, as they travel to the beach. Duke is well aware of their differing backgrounds: “Him, the oldest son of a broadcast evangelist. Me, the only son of the Grand Rabbi of Houston.” There’s also the matter of Salazar being gay, which Duke addresses about a quarter of the way through the book as it prompts him to rethink the ways he might have been unwittingly cruel to his friend. “It was like I had taken a strange drug and needed to arrange my mind and balance my feet,” he thinks after learning of his friend’s sexuality. But ultimately, the bond between the two endures. As Duke tells another character late in the novel, “We were born seven days apart, in February, 1964….We got made under the same sky.” Salazar will soon head to boot camp, which his father isn’t happy about. Both men have a lot on their minds, including whether or not they will take up their fathers’ respective religious positions. They’re also fond of discussing literature and following the exploits of Nolan Ryan. The novel’s second half introduces more characters, including a reactionary Vietnam veteran and a young woman to whom Duke is drawn—and who may have a secret connection to Salazar. It’s a largely satisfying novel, even if Salazar sometimes comes off as the more compelling of the two lead characters.

A heady, thoughtful novel about two heady, thoughtful friends.