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The output of some publishers is so consistent that their logo on a book raises my expectations. That’s the problem Chelsea Station Editions has. I keep wondering when I pick up one of their books if this is the one that will tarnish the crown. So far, however, the jewels keep glimmering and Jeffrey Luscombe’s Shirts and Skins is no exception.

This collection of linked stories concerns Josh Moore, who lives with his folks in slummy, industrial Hamilton, Ontario. He envisions a life away from the steel mills once he grows up but finds adulthood even more confining and frustrating than being a kid. He fights through dead-end jobs, community college, nights at the straight strip club with his co-workers, substance abuse and a bad marriage to become comfortable with the man he is rather than who he thinks he should be.

The first stories about Josh as a boy amply illustrate Luscombe’s skill at characterization, not only for his protagonist but for the rest of Josh’s family as well. Particularly deft is his portrayal of Josh’s father, Ted, who has an alcohol-induced nervous breakdown, morphing from a brash, self-confident, long-haired Socialist into a reclusive Bible-thumping shell of a hodophobe who can’t even drive to his own mother’s funeral. Luscombe handles this transition with brave assurance, never putting a foot in unsympathetic territory.

Josh also transitions from an overweight boy into a lean adolescent boy with a ready sneer and a penchant for rye and Diet Pepsi who stops just short of being a bully. Due to a particularly traumatic incident, Josh has his sexuality firmly shoved into the back of his closet. Even so, situations occur at the straight strip clubs or with friends that smoulder with sexual tension—indeed, that tension bleeds from nearly every character. By the time that tension is released by his coming out, we feel the relief as keenly as does Josh.

But the final story is the real masterpiece; a synthesis of both Josh’s family stories and his new queer life as Josh and his partner, Glenn, visit Ted at the nursing home and take him out to breakfast. Heartbreaking and revelatory, it brings both halves of Josh’s world together and meshes them effortlessly.

Luscombe’s prose is never overwritten nor is it understated and spare. It’s tight and economical without losing well-chosen details, never forsaking Josh’s voice in favor of the author. Best of all, his dialogue is wholly natural and never sounds written.

In the best Chelsea Station Editions tradition, Shirts and Skins is well-plotted and told with a craftsman’s touch, deeply felt characters and a gritty sense of place. It belongs next to David Pratt’s Bob the Book and Michael Graves’ Dirty Ones as a benchmark for gay literary fiction. 

Reviewed by Jerry Wheeler