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Exit Wounds
Craig Amundsen’s world is in a state of flux—or, as he sees it, falling apart. Settling into his 50s, he feels less and less a part of his beloved San Francisco, as the gay mecca gives way to tech bros and overpriced real estate. In the wake of a failed relationship and on the cusp of losing a job he loves, Craig jumps at the chance for jury duty, if only as a diversion from his own problems. The trial challenges his assumptions about the world around him, ultimately revealing a way toward embracing the inevitability of change—and even the possibility of love.
Exit Wounds examines the challenges of aging in a youth-centered culture, with a playful sense of humor and a touch of romance.
Lewis DeSimone is the author of the novels Chemistry, The Heart’s History, and Channeling Morgan. A longtime resident of San Francisco, he currently lives in Minneapolis.
Exit Wounds examines the challenges of aging in a youth-centered culture, with a playful sense of humor and a touch of romance.
Lewis DeSimone is the author of the novels Chemistry, The Heart’s History, and Channeling Morgan. A longtime resident of San Francisco, he currently lives in Minneapolis.
378 pages, Paperback
Published July 23, 2024
12 people want to read
About the author
Lewis DeSimone
15 books15 followersLewis DeSimone is the author of the novels Exit Wounds, Channeling Morgan, Chemistry, and The Heart's History. His work has also appeared in Christopher Street, James White Review, Harrington Gay Men’s Fiction Quarterly, and the anthologies Charmed Lives: Gay Spirit in Storytelling, Best Gay Love Stories: Summer Flings, I Like It Like That: True Tales of Gay Male Desire, Second Person Queer: Who You Are (So Far), The Mammoth Book of Threesomes and Moresomes, and My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them. His contribution to the latter was highlighted on Salon.com and reprinted in Ganymede and Best Gay Stories 2010. He lives in Minneapolis, where he is currently at work on his next novel.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 19, 2024
AGING AND CHANGE
Exit Wounds, Lewis DeSimone’s fourth novel, is a lustrous love letter to San Francisco and to the gay culture that has thrived there.
In “Mesopotamia,” the first chapter of Exit Wounds, Craig, the narrator, hosts a birthday party for Oscar, who is turning fifty. Craig’s apartment is “on the edge of the Castro.” Brendan is the first to arrive. In conversation with Craig, Brendan, who is into real estate, refers to the Castro as Eureka Valley. Craig says, “No one has called this place Eureka Valley since the sixties. It’s like referring to Iraq as Mesopotamia.” Oscar, Rafe, John, and Wayne soon arrive. During the party, Craig observes, “When I first moved to San Francisco, there were no 50-year-olds in the Castro. The 50-year-olds were already dead.” We eventually learn that the year in which the novel takes place is 2019.
As is usual in a novel by Lewis DeSimone, the conversations between his characters are delightfully entertaining, perceptive, and witty. So many quotable lines come at you in just the first chapter. For example, “It [Campari] looked like cherry cough syrup but, as I remembered, tasted more like arsenic.” And this line, “We were freer when we were outlaws.” One more: “He fed off other people’s hypocrisy like Popeye with a can of spinach.”
Through the eyes of Craig, DeSimone gives us unforgettable descriptions of San Francisco. In chapter 23, “Nothing but the Truth,” Craig takes a walk: “I turned north on Castro, legs straining at the angle of the climb. I veered onto State for some relief and, at the end of the block, continued up toward Corona Heights. The park might have been another planet . . . The plants thinned out the higher I got, until I emerged onto a moonscape, two piles of boulders framing a plateau that offered an expansive view of the city. I called it Mount Castro.” Throughout the novel, you know exactly where you are.
Craig gets called for jury duty and is selected. When the jury goes into deliberations, he is elected foreman. Crucial evidence in the case is a bullet’s exit wound on the defendant’s leg. Was it self-inflicted or shot from a distance? The prosecutor asks a witness, “Do you have specific training in anatomy? Or in exit wounds?” Many of the thirty chapter titles not only reflect aspects of Craig’s jury duty, they also describe what else is going on in his life, such as, “Civic Duty,” “Closing Arguments,” “Circumstantial Evidence,” “No Further Questions,” and “The Defense Rests.”
Here are two more lines that will stay with me for a long time. When Wayne comes to see him, Craig reflects, “We were in a Chekhov play, waiting for the gun to go off.” Toward the conclusion of the novel, Rafe says, “We’re all on the exit ramp.”
Lewis DeSimone’s writing in Exit Wounds is meticulous. He puts the right words in the right order. No word is extraneous or is out of place. The novel effortlessly flows through its 371 pages. I wasn’t ready to leave Craig and his friends.
Elegiac is a word that comes to mind to describe “The View from Twin Peaks,” the last chapter of Exit Wounds. Craig asks Brendan, “I mean, are we upset because the city’s changing, or because we are?” Brendan answers, “A little of both, I guess.” Aging and change. They are inseparable.
Exit Wounds, Lewis DeSimone’s fourth novel, is a lustrous love letter to San Francisco and to the gay culture that has thrived there.
In “Mesopotamia,” the first chapter of Exit Wounds, Craig, the narrator, hosts a birthday party for Oscar, who is turning fifty. Craig’s apartment is “on the edge of the Castro.” Brendan is the first to arrive. In conversation with Craig, Brendan, who is into real estate, refers to the Castro as Eureka Valley. Craig says, “No one has called this place Eureka Valley since the sixties. It’s like referring to Iraq as Mesopotamia.” Oscar, Rafe, John, and Wayne soon arrive. During the party, Craig observes, “When I first moved to San Francisco, there were no 50-year-olds in the Castro. The 50-year-olds were already dead.” We eventually learn that the year in which the novel takes place is 2019.
As is usual in a novel by Lewis DeSimone, the conversations between his characters are delightfully entertaining, perceptive, and witty. So many quotable lines come at you in just the first chapter. For example, “It [Campari] looked like cherry cough syrup but, as I remembered, tasted more like arsenic.” And this line, “We were freer when we were outlaws.” One more: “He fed off other people’s hypocrisy like Popeye with a can of spinach.”
Through the eyes of Craig, DeSimone gives us unforgettable descriptions of San Francisco. In chapter 23, “Nothing but the Truth,” Craig takes a walk: “I turned north on Castro, legs straining at the angle of the climb. I veered onto State for some relief and, at the end of the block, continued up toward Corona Heights. The park might have been another planet . . . The plants thinned out the higher I got, until I emerged onto a moonscape, two piles of boulders framing a plateau that offered an expansive view of the city. I called it Mount Castro.” Throughout the novel, you know exactly where you are.
Craig gets called for jury duty and is selected. When the jury goes into deliberations, he is elected foreman. Crucial evidence in the case is a bullet’s exit wound on the defendant’s leg. Was it self-inflicted or shot from a distance? The prosecutor asks a witness, “Do you have specific training in anatomy? Or in exit wounds?” Many of the thirty chapter titles not only reflect aspects of Craig’s jury duty, they also describe what else is going on in his life, such as, “Civic Duty,” “Closing Arguments,” “Circumstantial Evidence,” “No Further Questions,” and “The Defense Rests.”
Here are two more lines that will stay with me for a long time. When Wayne comes to see him, Craig reflects, “We were in a Chekhov play, waiting for the gun to go off.” Toward the conclusion of the novel, Rafe says, “We’re all on the exit ramp.”
Lewis DeSimone’s writing in Exit Wounds is meticulous. He puts the right words in the right order. No word is extraneous or is out of place. The novel effortlessly flows through its 371 pages. I wasn’t ready to leave Craig and his friends.
Elegiac is a word that comes to mind to describe “The View from Twin Peaks,” the last chapter of Exit Wounds. Craig asks Brendan, “I mean, are we upset because the city’s changing, or because we are?” Brendan answers, “A little of both, I guess.” Aging and change. They are inseparable.
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