In Jupiter’s Shadow – Gregory Gerard (Infinity Publishing)
Buy it now at Amazon through The Dreamwalker Group.
French diplomat Jean Giraudoux once said,“The key to success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” But Gregory Gerard has nothing to fake in the memoir of his boyhood, In Jupiter’s Shadow. His sincerity is apparent on every page, handily overwhelming the book’s few shortcomings.
The Jupiter of the title is Jupiter Jones, the boy detective featured in the Three Investigators series of books by Robert Arthur. Gerard tries to emulate Jupiter whenever he has a problem, sussing out clues and doing research like any good gumshoe.However, he doesn’t solve the mystery of his gayness until the last few pages –after multiple operations for his hydrocephalitic brother Paul, escaping Catholic guilt and enduring the death of his best friend Roy in a car accident.
Despite these traumas, Gerard has a fairly typical adolescence with his upper-middle class family, making the word for this book “sweet.” Yes, it’s Walton’s-style family sweet – but Gerard’s keen eye for observation and talent for maintaining tension ensures that its sweetness never cloys or becomes overly sentimental.
Is it a perfect book? No. I could have used more of a sense of place and time to root the characters, though he tries to accomplish that through his forced crush on Sheena Easton and love of Stephen King bestsellers (remember when King wrote instead of just typed?). In the same vein, his brothers and sisters weren’t drawn too distinctly, with the exception of Paul, who was a standout character.
However, the portraits of his parents more than make up for the lack, especially that of his father Darwin, a plain-spoken blue-collar kinda guy who becomes overly polite and florid when drunk (dubbed the “Drinking Dar” by Gerard). There is love, respect and drama in this relationship, much of it brilliantly implied rather than baldly stated. The scene where he tells his father he loves him, on advice from kindly Father O’Malley, is beautiful and understated.
What I liked about In Jupiter’s Shadow is its lack of pretension. It’s a loving look at one gay man’s boyhood – certainly not mine and probably not yours, but a nicely drawn, entertaining portrait of warmth, family and home.
Be it ever so humble.
Reviewed by Jerry Wheeler
Have been trying for some time to describe what has happened to Stephen King, especially since making the painful plod through "Under the Dome." Now I have a apt description: "Remember when King wrote instead of just typed." And, WHOA!, can he type. Thank you for that.
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I loved the book because I grew up in the Bronx in NYC; and my life was very different than the life described by Gerard. While reading his book, I was able to appreciate the innocence of his childhood, the awakening of his sexuality and the internal battle he had with being gay. His insecurities and his akwardness around girls made me laugh. Reading about his childhood, made me a bit jealous as we did not have that freedom, space, adventures and most of all the innocence. I also enjoyed reading about his family life and their interaction in the day to day living. In his writing you can appreciate the love, admiration and respect he has for his brother Paul and the conflict he had with his father even though deep inside he truly loved him. His honesty in describing "the Drinking Dar" makes you realize, we all have a "Drinking Dar" in our family. I laughed while reading those instances as I have a few "Drinking Dar" in my family, although not my Dad. My mother always had, and still has gay friends either males or females, so I never grew up thinking of them as any different than heterosexuals. I never considered the issues and conflicts that gays face, until more and more gays are writing about them. It is important to do this, because it helps educate the next generation. I hope the book is read by teenagers that are going through the same issues as Gerard describes in his book and realize that you are who you are and just that makes you special. I hope it inspires them to step forward and let the world know what their sexual preference is and that that does not changes them as human beings. It is also a lesson for the rest of us to be more accepting of everyone, not living their life by our standards, preference, desires, dreams, or beliefs. I would definitely read and enjoy a second part.
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I well remember Gregory Gerard from the
day my mom brought him home from the
hospital. He was always an innovative
child, at age three writing a play,
making us buy tickets to it and
performing it in our living room.
Always sincere, always full of
humor and especially about himself,
he has been a wonderful family member.
I knew I loved the book because
I read it in the comfort of my bed
thru a few days when it was first
becoming a reality.
Congratulations on a labor of love.
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