Customer Reviews

Closing Distance

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Closing Distance is one powerful book. Like life itself, it's full of loose ends. It leaves you wanting more. While Oliver's use of the present tense is immediately inviting (reminiscent of the Greek of Mark's Gospel!), Oliver's true gift is in his ability to create characters. His characterization is simply second to none. Unlike so many authors who devote a novel to unfolding one character and giving short shrift to the rest, Oliver in an economy of words is able to introduce us to people who will live with us the rest of our lives. Who, having once met them, can ever forget the likes of LidaJean, Rose and Lennie, Alexa, Anthony, or Bea? And that is to say nothing about Pete, his mom or Bill. Read the book, folks! This man has the GIFT.

How many times have you borrowed a book and then went out to buy it AFTER you read it? This book is a keeper, probably one of the best books of gay fiction I've read. While it was indeed tough to get into the book at first, as one reviewer commented, it was well worth the read. Once past the first few chapters, I wasn't able to put it down. It made me smile, and there were chapters in there (particularly when describing his brother-in-law poolside) that you wondered why it was in the book at all. But, afterward, the payoff was such that you were even tempted to reread these chapters over again, hoping to get the point once more. What I liked about this book was its celebration and acceptance of gay life from various perspectives, all not necessarily gay (for instance, from his Mother's point of view). This book will have you smiling, and wanting to remember particular lines, and jumping for joy. And maybe even give you a few good, happy tears at points. I would most assuredly recommend this book to anyone. A must read!

Yes the book is open ended (which I usually dislike), but it gives enough clues where one can put the pieces together and come up with an answer for themselves.

Pete is creative, gay, he runs a successful business, but as he approaches forty he faces crises in both his family and his love life. While the novel centres on Pete, the other characters are well developed, and the story progresses mainly through long and interesting dialogues between these various individuals. The tension is maintained to the end, concerning among other things the health of Pete's aging mother, the stability of his brother's marriage, Pete's business prospects, his relationship with his one time lover and now best friend, and particularly the question of his own health, is he HIV positive?

This is a warm and enjoyable story, and while not all the questions raised are answered one is left with a positive feeling at the end.

A friend of mine insisted that this was the best book he'd ever read, and after finishing it, I'm curious to know if I missed something. Jim Oliver's novel is the story of a wealthy family's handling of their matriarch's terminal illness. It is told mostly through the viewpoint of the family's gay son, Pete, an affable but wishy-washy character. I feel the one main problem with this book is the abundance of sub-plots created for undeveloped characters. Most of them are summarily dropped without conclusions. One sister is having an affair, another sister is worried her husband is having an affair, the brother is doing some kind of insider trading, and a friend is considering going to Saudi Arabia for a job despite being Jewish and deathly afraid of flying. These characters are given screen-time but little development, and the reader ends up having no real investment in them.

Pete is vaguely dissatisfied with his life, and he doesn't learn until very late in the story what his goal is, and it's probably much too late for the reader. What he wants involves a contrived, unexplained get-rich scheme and the new found ability to be spontaneous and do things he's always wanted to do. The reader doesn't know of these desires until two-hundred pages into the book, and the book only has 249 pages. Apparently, a major hurdle for our hero is officially coming out to his family. The problem is that it wasn't established very well that he was fearfully or despondently closeted and it's fairly obvious that they all know anyway and accept him as he is.

On the plus side, Liz Flowers, the aforementioned matriarch, is a strong and believable character. A reader could probably be inspired by her fortitude in the face of death. Furthermore, the topic of AIDS is discussed intelligently and rationally, and although the AIDS subplot is also unresolved, one can deduce that it's not important to know if Pete has AIDS, it's just important for him to start living life. A good lesson, but if perhaps he had been a more vivid and lovable character, this would have been a more compelling story. I would probably still recommend it to some readers interested in early 90's gay fiction.

I don't know what the reviewers were on when they read this book, but it certainly effected their judgement. This book is terrible! I couldn't get past the 2nd chapter. It has no organization whatsover. I almost became dizzy trying to keep track of who was who. It's just plain poor writing. Nothing against the author at all, but that's how it is. Avoid at all costs.