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Hurricane season in Florida reflects and magnifies the turbulence in Andrew's mind as he begins caring for his elderly father, Charles. At the same time, he invites Ex, a young, attractive stranger, into his beachside home. While various tropical storms and hurricanes come and go, Andrew embraces the new rhythms of his life as a mature, single gay man, finding both discomfort and solace in the perennial process of weathering life's storms while letting go of everything and everyone he holds dear. At times, his deceased mother, Edith, speaks acerbically to Andrew's concerns in internal monologues. Meanwhile, his relationship with his slightly older sister, Sheila, simmers alongside his in their twin-like solitude of choice.
The many metaphorical forays into hurricane season and the intensity of well-crafted literary writing bring what could have been a quiet, unnoticeable story into brilliant, thoughtful focus. There is no doubt that as Shapiro opens the windows of Andrew's home in this novel, the reflections reveal many truths and issues manifesting from his own life and the affairs of his heart. This is a deeply human story peppered with the minutiae of ordinary daily life—meals prepared, clothes laundered, text messages and phone calls returned, beach sand swept up from tiled floors, the ashes of deceased parents dispersed—but it is never mundane or boring. Neither does it reveal the extraordinary in ordinary daily life, but instead focuses on interiors—rooms, feelings, lifestyles, yearnings, and the detritus of existence in human form. Like the ever-present sea in the backdrop, the novel shimmers and beckons the reader into its sometimes calm and sometimes frenzied depths, reveling in the individual droplets that merge into a single powerful body.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review