Bear Me Safely over

by Sheri Joseph

When a young couple, Sidra and Curtis, decide to make their relationship permanent, their forthcoming marriage interconnects the members of their two disfunctional and fractured families as they struggle to deal in various ways with troubled individuals searching for their path in life. A first novel. 30,000 first printing.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Gay

259 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2002

About the author

Sheri Joseph’s fourth book, ANGELS AT THE GATE, has just been released. A literary novel with elements of mystery and thriller, ANGELS AT THE GATE follows the story of Leah, a student at a small, remote university in the late 1980s who becomes fixated on the unexplained death of a classmate.

Sheri Joseph is the author of three previous books of fiction. Her novel WHERE YOU CAN FIND ME was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. STRAY, another novel, won the Grub Street National Book Prize. BEAR ME SAFELY OVER, a cycle of stories, was a Book Sense 76 selection in both hardcover and paperback.

A resident of Atlanta, she teaches in the creative writing program at Georgia State University.

Connect via her author page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sheri-... or on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sherijos/ or check out her website: www.sherijoseph.com

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

a book that k picked out for me to read. it was from her collection and she thought i'd like it. i did like it. the story was compelling and i wanted to continue reading and turning pages. i felt vested in the characters and could relate to most of them. the one thing i did not like about the book was it's structure: it was more like several short stories about the same characters instead of a novel. that would have been fine, except for the second 'chapter' from the end was about as long as all the other chapters combined, and didn't follow the same structure. i can't be the only one that notices and is bothered by these things. i think i would have enjoyed the book more if it was either presented as a collection of short stories about the same group of people, or restructured just a bit to flow better as a novel. the most difficult part of the book was that for the first page or so of each 'chapter' i had no idea who the narrator was. each chapter was from a different character's point of view--sometimes that person was telling the story, and sometimes it was a 3rd person narrator. so until i got a clue several paragraphs in, i had no idea who was talking or being talked about. that was difficult. besides the structure issues (and maybe i AM the only person to care about that shit) i really enjoyed the book.

[Debra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bear Me Safely Over by Sheri Joseph, who happened to be my writing instructor at the Northwoods Writers Conference this year at Bemidji State University, is one of the reasons why I read this book.

After getting kicked by a horse owned by his girlfriend Sidra, Curtis without much explanation decides to marry her. Okay??? The narrative is about how these two families come together. The conflict in this story is the gay brother of Curtis, Paul. Paul suffers through his brother's verbal and physical abuse until he's caught prostituting himself and he moves in with Sidra's family.

I found that the prose didn't always fit the age of the characters. However the author does explore with creditable insight into the psychology of each of the characters.

[Liz Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was written by a magazine story winner and you could tell. Writing was choppy and went off on many different stories with different characters making it difficult to follow at times. The context was interesting, but was messy.

[Barbara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Front cover and Amazon description of is not what the book was about!! Not what I expected the book to be and am greatly disappointed - I would not have purchased - too much detail and too much Paul. Choppy not a smooth flowing story.

[Frankie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My absolute favorite book of all time. She takes a snapshot of rural Georgia and it made me weep. People complaining about it being choppy because it's wove together like a photo album over the span of years. She will never know what this book has meant to me.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully written and original, Joseph has effectively brought Old South and New South concerns together in one, complex and rewarding book.

[MD · Rating 1 out of 5]

Put this one down, a bit too crude for my taste. Don't really want to read details about teens having sex, especially from an underage boy with truck drivers.

[Mckenzie Bruyere · Rating 2 out of 5]

Done!