COMFORT AND JOY

A rather pale and bloodless coming-out story by Grimsley (My Drowning, 1996, etc.) in which a nice southern boy falls for a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. The McKinneys are the sort of family Europeans usually have in mind when they think of Americans from the Old South. Long-established, genteel, and, above all, rich, the McKinney line is crowded with Confederate officers, gentleman farmers, distinguished jurists, and, lately, respected physicians. Ford McKinney, heir to the family name and wealth, is the third generation to practice medicine. He does so happily and well at a hospital in Atlanta where he meets Danny Crell, one of the hospital administrators. Danny is also from the South, but the Crells are unlikely to have had any dealings with the McKinneys down the years unless one of them happened to be caught poaching on a McKinney estate. But this is still the 20th century, after all, and Danny and Ford fall for each other in a big way. After a long while together, they feel that they should take the plunge and visit each other’s family over the Christmas holidays. For Danny, the angst is driven more by class than sex: his family is made up of simple country folk from the backwoods of North Carolina who know all about the odd things that boys can get up to, but who are uneasy around rich kids. All the same, they take to Ford right away. The real hurdle is Ford’s Savannah family, who have been pressuring him to marry for years and are already lining up the perfect girl. This is a case of deep denial, intensified by inheritance rights. Can they learn to let go of their little boy? What was it Christ said about the rich man and the Kingdom of Heaven? A melodramatic and somewhat rambling story that lacks much in the way of a focus—let alone a climax—and unravels into a ball of self-absorption in short order.