Fifteen years after his mother left town in disgrace, Malachi "Mally" Jacobs returns to Croy, Oklahoma to take care of his ailing grandfather. Outcast and abandoned, he knows nothing about his father, or why he and his mother left Croy shortly after he was born. Mally is taunted by the older boys and shunned by his classmates. But after a few false starts, he forms an unlikely alliance with Randy, a football player with dysfunctional parents, and Joanie, an intellectually curious and courageous girl who cannot face the truth about her own family. The three kids find a haven in each other that takes the place of their fractured families. But it's a refuge that has its costs. Randy's best friend, Red, harbors a jealousy that goes deeper than the loss of a football buddy, leading to ever more violent bullying of Mally. Randy's abrasive run-ins with Joanie blossom into romance, even as he uncovers the betrayals that underlie her seemingly perfect family, and Joanie's efforts to bring Mally out of his shell seem on a collision course with her hopes for a steady boyfriend. Ultimately, Joanie, Mally, and Randy must face the truth about themselves and each other, and take comfort in the bonds of true friendship.
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More About the Author
Louis Flint Ceci is an author, educator, and software engineer. His published works include poems, short stories, autobigraphical essays, and a novel. He has also published scholarly works on poetics, linguistics, and artificial neural networks. He is a masters swimmer, having competed in the past two Gay Games, the IGLA World Championships in Paris, and the FINA World Championships in Perth. He won the gold medal in the Poetic Justice poetry slam at the 2002 Gay Games in Sydney.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Louis Flint Ceci is a quiet author, a writer who understands and appreciates the skills of humming a tune before he sings it, of setting an atmosphere slowly and gently before he ignites his story, and who appreciates the opportunity that writing fiction provides for making important philosophical statements without beating the reader over the head. Described in this book's back pages as an author, educator, software engineer, swimmer, actor and more, with this novel COMFORT ME he proves to be a talent very worthy of attention.
In Croy, Oklahoma, a very small town populated with families both intact and strained or broken, Ceci slowly introduces a group of high school kids whose behavior is very much related to the general social patterns that stretch across the Midwest to both coasts. If he loses his readers with his too long lingering over football games and sports chatter, he gradually brings them back into the fold as the stereotypes become individuals, each with special need and histories and problems and struggles that face all youth at this age. Red is a football hero whose sports activities are mirrored by Randy - both boys coming from families of different problems. Mally (or Malachi) is a newcomer, a somewhat frail lad who returns to Croy after having been absent for 15 years with his mother who left Croy under questionable circumstances: Mally returns to care for his aging grandfather Reverend Jacobs who lives meagerly under the watchful eye of a cranky old Mrs. Oldfield. Girls gradually are introduced to the story - Candy is a 'looker' much desired by Red and Randy, Joanie is a straightforward girl whose father is the local pharmacist - and the manner in which each is worked into the congregation of characters in many ways provides the crisis of the story. Mally doesn't 'fit in' and the delicate manner in which the author introduces his sexual orientation is a masterpiece of understatement. Incidents begin to occur, incidents that slowly yet relentlessly uncover long hidden secrets about all of the townsfolk. The glue that holds the story together is the extraordinary friendship and bond that forms among Randy, Joanie, and Mally, a bond that allows each of the three to blossom into the beings they truly are while serving as strengths for the healing of the many old problems that have disturbed the folk of Croy, Oklahoma. It is a story that could fall into the 'out of the mouth of babes' category: the mother of one of the triad states 'Kids. We think we're protecting them, and all the time they're protecting us.' And from another of the adults 'So when I see that glow of happiness, that wonder in their eyes, I want to rush tight up and build a wall around it, hide it away form the world, because the world will try to tear it from them, turn it rotten.'
What Louis Flint Ceci manages to bring to the quilting table in this atmospheric, genuinely tender story is not only a cast of people we learn to love and understand, but also topics of sexual identity played out in such a knowing detail that the bruises other writers bring to the topic pale in comparison, of the Catholic Church and religion in general, and the of the fragility of the family unit assaulted by rumors and truths that sound so familiar that they resemble our neighbors and ourselves. This is a tale about the strength of the human spirit challenged by painful histories and unspoken truths and the powerful glue of friendships that allow us each to survive. COMFORT ME is a book so well written that it can be enjoyed by anyone who enjoys fine story telling, and should be read by teenagers who are encountering the fragility of approaching meaningful adult lives. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, October 09
In Croy, Oklahoma, a very small town populated with families both intact and strained or broken, Ceci slowly introduces a group of high school kids whose behavior is very much related to the general social patterns that stretch across the Midwest to both coasts. If he loses his readers with his too long lingering over football games and sports chatter, he gradually brings them back into the fold as the stereotypes become individuals, each with special need and histories and problems and struggles that face all youth at this age. Red is a football hero whose sports activities are mirrored by Randy - both boys coming from families of different problems. Mally (or Malachi) is a newcomer, a somewhat frail lad who returns to Croy after having been absent for 15 years with his mother who left Croy under questionable circumstances: Mally returns to care for his aging grandfather Reverend Jacobs who lives meagerly under the watchful eye of a cranky old Mrs. Oldfield. Girls gradually are introduced to the story - Candy is a 'looker' much desired by Red and Randy, Joanie is a straightforward girl whose father is the local pharmacist - and the manner in which each is worked into the congregation of characters in many ways provides the crisis of the story. Mally doesn't 'fit in' and the delicate manner in which the author introduces his sexual orientation is a masterpiece of understatement. Incidents begin to occur, incidents that slowly yet relentlessly uncover long hidden secrets about all of the townsfolk. The glue that holds the story together is the extraordinary friendship and bond that forms among Randy, Joanie, and Mally, a bond that allows each of the three to blossom into the beings they truly are while serving as strengths for the healing of the many old problems that have disturbed the folk of Croy, Oklahoma. It is a story that could fall into the 'out of the mouth of babes' category: the mother of one of the triad states 'Kids. We think we're protecting them, and all the time they're protecting us.' And from another of the adults 'So when I see that glow of happiness, that wonder in their eyes, I want to rush tight up and build a wall around it, hide it away form the world, because the world will try to tear it from them, turn it rotten.'
What Louis Flint Ceci manages to bring to the quilting table in this atmospheric, genuinely tender story is not only a cast of people we learn to love and understand, but also topics of sexual identity played out in such a knowing detail that the bruises other writers bring to the topic pale in comparison, of the Catholic Church and religion in general, and the of the fragility of the family unit assaulted by rumors and truths that sound so familiar that they resemble our neighbors and ourselves. This is a tale about the strength of the human spirit challenged by painful histories and unspoken truths and the powerful glue of friendships that allow us each to survive. COMFORT ME is a book so well written that it can be enjoyed by anyone who enjoys fine story telling, and should be read by teenagers who are encountering the fragility of approaching meaningful adult lives. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, October 09
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An intriguing story of teenagers facing their families and their problems as they come of age
November 9, 2009
Format:Paperback
You can't be honest with other people until you're honest with yourself. "Comfort Me" is the story of Mally Jacobs and his two friends Randy and Joanie. Each of them hold their own conflicts about their past, their families, and the school around them. But through the power of the their friendship, they soon find that frank honesty may save them all yet. "Comfort Me" is an intriguing story of teenagers facing their families and their problems as they come of age, highly recommended.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By T. Schmidt
Format:Paperback
My gay book club read Comfort Me and loved it. The book has wonderful characters, and strong dialog. I strongly recommend this book to readers of all ages, both gay and straight.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Heartfelt
Some books seem to take you in right from the start and bring you along with the experience with a sense of ease and authenticity. This is one of these books. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Darryl E. Crone
5.0 out of 5 stars
Touching, credible story about teen lives in the Heartland
Louis Flint Ceci perfectly captures the lives and issues of middle class Heartland America, weaving together the trials of p;ublic school, the issues created by broken families,... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Sometime Critic
5.0 out of 5 stars
Coming Home
Ceci, Louis Flint. "Comfort Me", Torquere Press, 2009.
Coming Home
Amos Lassen
"Comfort Me" is one of those books in which the author takes his... Read more
Coming Home
Amos Lassen
"Comfort Me" is one of those books in which the author takes his... Read more
Published on May 21, 2010
3.0 out of 5 stars
Comfortable reading
"Comfort Me" is a very credible novel about growing up in a very small mid-American town. The characters are interesting and very much like my high school class mates. Read more
Published on January 14, 2010 by R. Mahaffey
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