Look Away Silence

---by Edward C. Patterson

Powerful!  This is a beautiful, emotional, moving tribute to those who died of AIDS during the 80's, the early years when our country looked away from the men and their families who suffered from this incurable disorder. 

When I first started reading the story of Martin, a funny, happy-go-lucky gay man in New Jersey who got most of his pleasure from warbling with the NJ Sparrows, a gay singing group, I wasn't sure if I was going to like it.  I didn't see then that the author was setting me up to see that this supposedly shallow man, the unbrave, as he referred to himself, was beginning a journey where he would become the antithesis of that.  He'd become the center of his partner's world, a very strong very brave but fallible man who would support his man to the end, despite his own shortcomings. 

Matt, a cowboy from Houston, showed up at Martin's workplace one Christmas Eve and charmed Martin into a date.  The date became many dates and ultimately became their marriage, in their eyes only, since gay marriage wasn't legally recognized anywhere.    Matt's former partner had died from a gay bashing but he didn't share that Luis also was HIV positive.  And he didn't share that he was as well, until it was too late, and Matt developed full-blown AIDS. 

This story is so well done, so meticulous to detail and yet so very humorous in places, that I felt that I knew these men and their families and extended family.   It's told in first person POV and the author mentions that it is based on his own experiences and those of others.  I don't know if it's an autobiography, but it certainly reads that way.  Whether it is or isn't, I want to meet him and hug him and thank him for this wonderful story. 

I have read several hundred M/M romances over the past year and some have been very emotional and very sad, but I have never cried out loud, sobbed in fact, until this story.   The scene at Thanksgiving at Matt's family's house toward the end of the story just did it for me, and it continued through the final four chapters. Seeing the AIDS Memorial Quilt (1987) on the Mall in Washington, D.C. through Martin's eyes reminded me so much of how I felt when I first saw the Vietnam War Memorial.  I couldn't even breathe through the emotion, not then, not now.   I don't want to say goodbye to Matt and Martin.   I hope everyone who has a chance to read this story will do so.  You won't walk away unaffected.  

Very highly recommended!  5 stars