Customer Reviews

A Perfect Peace

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4 star:		(1)
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As a female Master of Social Work student planning to work with veterans, I selected this book to gain insight into the gay population within the military. This topic was difficult to find. Most gay military fiction is meant more for arousal than a sensitive and emotionally complex story. Mr. Harper did an excellent job filling this gap in literature.

From the very beginning, the reader is invited into the quiet and private world of Bobby Joe Keyes. By the time this 19 year old man reaches England for the pre-staging of D-Day, his life is marked by the tragedies of losing his family in a car accident and being sexually molested by a coach in his small Texas hometown. Throughout the book, the yearning for intimacy and truly being loved drives him to make great sacrifices to maintain his first love affair with Tony, a fellow soldier who has been injured and hospitalized. The emotions of Bobby Joe are written so personally anyone who has ever been in love, straight or gay, can put themselves in his place. I can honestly say I have never identified with a gay man before, but couldn't help myself as I became more and more involved in the story. It is important to recognize this book is about LOVE, not sex. Though the sex scenes are described well enough to stimulate the senses, they are certainly not what you will find in erotic literature.

Another important theme I have not seen ANYWHERE in popular portrayals of gay men is spirituality. Mr. Harper beautifully writes of Bobby Joe's spiritual awakening and awareness of the love of God. It fills a void in Bobby Joe's life that extends beyond his lover who introduced him to the Anglican Church. An interesting thing the author does is portray the religious people Bobby Joe encounters as accepting of his homosexuality. I wonder if Mr. Harper, a retired Episcopalian priest, is not offering a moral lesson to his fellow clergy on the importance of inclusiveness in the expression of God's love. He contrasts this with the fundamental version of Christianity Bobby Joe was raised with that alienated him.

The last thing is for those who may generally not find war stories appealing. The setting is World War II and the middle of the book DOES take place on the battlefield, but it is not about "guts and glory". It is written interestingly, but not graphically, and moves along so even non-action lovers like me can enjoy it. The war, like all the other experiences Bobby Joe has while in England, forms him as a person. During the battle, Bobby Joe proves himself to be an excellent soldier and leader and real hero. These, again, are not traits frequently given to gay men. Mr. Harper demonstrates that these characteristics are not inherently straight, but are available to all people - regardless of their sexual orientation.

Overall, I enthusiastically recommend this book and am looking forward to reading Mr. Harper's next novel, Arise Beloved.

A Perfect Peace by Glynn Compton Harper opens with Private Bobby Joe Keyes playing with himself under a blanket while watching a soldier sitting across from him in a truck. With this on the first page, I was afraid I'd walked into a gay spank book-definitely not my cup of tea. Fortunately there's a story here, not 342 pages of Private Keyes finding clever ways to drop the soap.

Set in England and France in and around D-Day, A Perfect Peace is a coming of age story and a comedy of errors. Amidst the bombs, snipers and trench-to-trench combat, Keyes fights another war across the internal terrain of his heart and soul.

Very early in the story Keyes meets Private Anthony James. There is an immediate connection between the two men-a mutual attraction that transcends the providence of one gay in the 1940's US Army finding another within his own company. Aware of his own sexuality, but having never been with a man his own age romantically, Keyes is flayed to the spiritual bone by new and overwhelming emotions. What follows is a journey of angst that most young men go through during their first great love affair; desire tormented by fear, wonder polluted with insecurity, but with the added barriers of being gay in the `40s. Keyes' and James' relationship is abhorred by society, illegal in the military, and forbidden based on a literal interpretation of the bible. As if these complications weren't enough, any place the two men might go for a first date might be shot up, burned down, or blown to smithereens at a moment's notice.

Circumstances of the war separate the pair, leaving Keyes in a position where he will do absolutely anything to reunite with James. Struggling against military bureaucracy and English high society, Keyes is further hampered by Private Bernie Bibbs, a man so filled with self hatred that he poisons anything he touches. Bibbs is loathsome to the degree that at one point while reading I wanted to reach into the page and throttle the character.

Throughout A Perfect Peace, author Harper is excellent at presenting Keyes' environment and his reactions to people and situations that don't so much influence the young private as hogtie him like a calf bound for slaughter. The lengths Keyes goes to maintain contact with James-while at the same time keeping their love secret-are metaphoric of any sacrifice any person makes when seeking something without which they feel they cannot live.

A Perfect Peace is difficult to place in a specific genre. It's not gay erotica; the story is too intelligent and the sex is written tactfully enough that even a redneck prairie boy like myself could read it without discomfort. It's not a typical romance novel; those seeking cookie cutter formula and cliché will have to look elsewhere. It's not entirely a war novel; there are no insights as to the minds of generals, or attempts to tackle ideals on a nationwide level. This is the story, honestly written, of one man in conflict. Keyes' tale could just as easily take place in a coal mining town, or a lumber camp, without losing any of its impact.

A Perfect Peace is for anybody who enjoys reading an intense story of the human condition, without needing everything to be wrapped up in pretty pink bow. I look forward to reading Harper's forthcoming novel, Escape from Eden.

Anyone who remembers the Mary Renault books "Last of the Wine" and "The Charioteer" and wishes that there was another tale that rises to the level of Ms. Renault's stories can find it in Glynn Harpers's sensitive story of two men in love. The book transends the Gay trash genre. It is about love and relationship, courage and commitment. When I reached the end, I had a real sense of loss in having to say goodbye to Bob Keyes and Tony James. Yes, there's gay sex, but the book is not just about sex. The story is told in a way that is restrained. There is also war and violence, but both the sex and the violence are integral to Mr. Harper's story. He is a masterful writer and I for one will look forward to reading more of his work--and the sooner the better.

I was tempted to rate this with 5 stars as the story truly is outstanding. A few editing problems and leaden writing at the start of the story preclude perfection, but I highly recommend the book to any reader who enjoys gay romance and historical fiction. The descriptive battle scenes evoke wartime horror much like Stephen Crane in the Red Badge of Courage, and of course the story itself is reminescent of Mary Renault's The Charioteer. At his best, the author approaches the quality of prose in both these classics. The price is a bit daunting for a paperback, but for a quality story like this consider it money well spent. This is a book I'll keep on my shelf and read again. I hope the author continues writing, perhaps even a sequel to this fine novel.

A Perfect Peace, by author Glynn Harper is an amazing book. And I know amazing is a word widely over used these days, but amazing it is indeed. It deals with a subject matter I am not overly interested in (a sort of homosexual coming of age set right smack in the middle of WW 11), but after some word of mouth push, I took a day off and read my way through this book.

It is beautifully written. The characters are well thought out the dialogue all rings true. If I had to scrape my head and come out with a comparrison to any author out there, I would have to write that if Flannery o' Connor were still with us and she deciced to tackle this (actually parallel subject matter), she would have turned out A Perfect Peace. It is written in a direct, unpretentious way that hits home and resounds with the reader.

I do not want to give away the plot or the outcome; however, one does not need to be only a fan of war stories, tales of love, or homosexual coming of age content. It is a riveting tale of relationships of all sorts, and of growing and expanding in a world that does not always give us an unimpeded path to explore our inner-selves.

Read this book!


Collin Tate