Sometimes Tragedy makes us stronger people,

Title: Three Voices

Setting: Rural, Carterville, NC

Plot Overview: A short tale about Trey Parker (Finding Family) finding love after his partner of 9 years, Brian Barnes, dies tragically of Cancer. We also get to meet Pat O'Connor, a Wildlife/Game Ranger, who finds himself raising his estranged 15 year old son, Marty, after his wife disown him due to him being gay. Pat has never been with another guy and Trey does not know if can ever love another guy like Brian, can these two form a new bond?

Character/relationships:

Trey Parker- He is around 31 at this story's start and quite tragic. I think as a character, I said he was not dynamic in Finding Family, but was well rounded. In this story, he is dynamic and touches on my heartstrings more for what is not said than what is said about his relationship with Brian Barnes. I think Jeff made the right move in not making him overly sexual in his prior story, a devoted lover that loses the love of his life is a very strong story element, but I can also tell by how short this story was that Jeff had more or less run out of steam. A pity that we never got to explore Trey Parker more as a character and as a gay man.

Pat O'Connor- A robust and masculine character, who is the "late in life" archetype of gay characters. From being a Marine to being a Forest Ranger, I get that he is a structured and highly motivated man, who's family history prevented him from being able to explore his sexuality. His family is screwed up and his current situation with his teenage son is also complicated.

Marty O"Connor- A gay teen trying to find his own way and gets into a fair amount of trouble. I think he is a good character, if slightly underdeveloped. He is the type of gay character that let's his dick do the thinking a little too often and it nearly got him raped. If Jeff had moved further with that story arc, I can see this character being a modern day reflection on gay teens with issues of bullying, partner abuse, and more, but only a glimmer of his true potential is shown here.

Supporting Character:

TJ Ladd and Donnie Micheaux- They're such a cute gay couple that breaks the stereotypes of race and love. Honestly, they're instrumental in helping both Trey and Pat in the story as supporting characters, but seeing how well functioning their family became after Finding Family makes me extremely happy.

Micah Micheaux- Donnie's 2nd son from the failed marriage in Finding Family, who is gay and in this story Marty's boyfriend. He is used sparingly, which is a shame as I wish the relationship with Marty had grown in rather than added in for plot reasons.

Grant Micheaux- Donnie's 1st son with his failed marriage, he's straight, but I really can't form much of an opinion around him. As straight characters go, he is not bad, but he is not great either. Jeff's success and failures in previous story probably held him back from exploring the brotherly dynamics of a straight black teen and his gay black brother more, but I think it would have been interesting (Oh well, Empire will do that for me )

BB aka Bruce- A big black football player with the heart of gold. As a straight character, I like him for what he did in minor supporting roles throughout the story, but felt Jeff could have made a nice character here as well if he had spent more time thinking about both straight and gay character development.

A few old faces came by from prior stories, but the cameos were much shorter and fewer here

Theme

No more Age issues, so this is a straight up gay fiction story-

Remembrance of what we lose- There's an emotional resonance that I get when reading this story, a sort of silent sleepy theme of love lost and found again. I think this type of storytelling is fine as a standalone piece, but what is missing to really make this emotional resonance something evocative for more effect is Trey and Brian needed more time to form their love with one another. I wish we had a longer open with Trey and Brian going through the rites of gay love, maybe even getting married in Boston (We legalized first!) Then, go into the heartache of Brian dying and Trey losing himself to despair, only to be supported by old friends like his uncle Parker and best friend TJ. Jeff missed a beat on the strength of melancholy and the determination of the human spirit, but what we did get was enough for a few tears. Maybe that was enough versus a river that have flowed from my eyelids.

Finding our place- A question of "where do we belong?" is fundamental to gay fiction, something as writers we explore almost as much as our sexual identity "who we are?" I like this aspect of the story and it is shown very well throughout from Trey's tragedy to Marty's exile to Pat's acceptance of being in a relationship with Trey. Belonging is a powerful message..

Story Review:

Alright, I have written several thousand words and read over 118 chapters in a matter of 2 weeks to get to this point. I wish there was more to read, I wish there was more to explore. As I said in Love of a Lifetime's review, I'd have been happy to read little Greg and Gary deal with issues as modern young gay men, which there are many even after gay marriage has been legalized.

What we got is a little more unexpected and too short, sadly. Yes, Jeff touched on new areas, but he did not explore the door that was open. However, like the way Jeff started out with When Love Comes, he ended this with a short and concise concept. It's a book-ended piece that is imperfect and open to interpretation on where these character will eventually end up, but that's why readers enjoy novels too, we want to use our imaginations.

Was the ending perfect, no, but it was a good ending.

As for the elements, Jeff again had all the right things set up for a great story, but this time unlike Finding Family, he just stripped too much down. One of the problems with writers is that we lose creative steam over a long story. "Rescue" stories are notoriously plot heavy and take away our energies far faster than a lot of others, which is why there's a lot of rehashing of plots and stories after a while in some gay authors, Brew Maxwell might have been able to do it the best, but few others can repeat.

Overall Jeff did a good job, he gave us functional characters, good plot development, and a central theme of "belonging" that made perfect sense.

I give this story:

8.5/10

Overall series rating-

8.75/10

I know I have been harsh as a reviewer on some things, I am not a perfect writer either and I have a lot of problems, too. We gay writers don't get paid for these free stories, we don't always get praise or even criticism for exploring our fantasies with others.

At times, we are left alone with our stories without a single reviewer, praise, or worthwhile email except a bunch of junk mail from a viagra re-seller. As readers, please remember that we need you guys to give us the emotional strength to continue our writing and storytelling.

At other times, we make bad moves and no one will ever tell us due to sycophantic praises or fear of alienating us that might stop us from writing, but we need you as our readers to be our conscience as well.

As Albert Camus said:

 

Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.

Story Link:

http://www.crvboy.org/stories/jeffallen/s008/c01.html