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Eddie & Alan

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Eddie and Alan is a novel that follows two men who reflect on the end of their three-year relationship. They come from different walks of life; Eddie is a black queer man, and Alan is a cis white, mostly straight man. They were introduced to each other at work and quickly connected. Eddie and Alan’s friendship morphed into something more intimate, coming to a head during their four-day beach vacation. At its heart, this story seeks to shed light on the complexities of relationships between men, the fluidity of sexuality, and what happens when the lines are blurred.

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Published April 11, 2024

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Anthony O Amiewalan

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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
Profile Image for Keith Marran.
31 reviews
April 30, 2024
I guess it’s good that it’s short?

You know when a friend tells you about a relationship breakup in detail with lots of “And then HE said ‘yeah?’ So then I said ‘yeah.’ Because I deserve someone better. So then we met for lunch the next day and he says… ” and you want stab a knife in your ears because it’s so tedious and boring but you’re trying to be a good friend and just listen? The whole book is like that. It’s also sort of like reading someone’s unedited journal entries - not a lot of descriptions or mood settings, just a lot of emotional rambling about feelings.

I sort of knew it was going to be bad because the author has a preface in which he outlines the themes of the book for you. So just in case you can’t figure out what the book is about, he tells you before you start it.

What’s also maddening is that he changes verb tenses constantly. One paragraph is in present tense and then suddenly there are a few sentences in past tense and then it changes pack to present tense. Was there no editor?
1 review
May 25, 2024
Eddie & Alan romanticizes and then deconstructs a tryst between two people, whose misaligned intentions reveal their vanity, insecurity, and addiction. Using New York City as his backdrop, Anthony Amiewalan’s premier novel examines the common story of unrequited love and is narrated through a queer lens, while also confronting issues around race, self-discovery, and mental health. These meaty topics require literary nudity, a commitment to a searing vulnerability that Eddie & Alan aimed to deliver.

With such a familiar premise, the story of Eddie & Alan presents a challenge for the first-time novelist to reimagine this love trope. He does this by offering a series of diary-like vignettes from the perspective of characters Eddie and Alan, two contrasting personalities struggling to ground themselves in reality. Amiewalan’s approach to storytelling resembles that of Caleb Azumah Nelson’s method in Open Water, which interchangeably narrates the story of two main characters but uses a series of poetic devices, which add texture to an everyday love story based in the United Kingdom. In
New York City, Eddie & Alan possesses all the ingredients for a piquant novella, however, its story plot gaps and unanswered questions create cliffhangers that left me wanting more.

Amiewalan dives into the story of Eddie Adenjj, an anxiety-ridden yet amendable Nigerian American man in the middle of a personal crisis of his own volition. Launching the novel with Eddie’s regrets about his transgressions while he’s rushing to see a psychic is an unpredictable start to this novel. This piques my interest in seeing how this character evolves. Eddie moved from a small town in Iowa to New York City as part of his self-discovery and coming-out journey. He interrogates his Blackness throughout the story, having grown up in a predominately white community, questioning feelings of
belonging and otherness. He struggles to experience self-love and liberation from his heteronormative upbringing, avoiding family questions about marrying a Yoruba woman. In coming out to his parents, Eddie experiences a rebirth, yet is tethered to feelings of self-doubt that rattle his idyllic life in New York with his partner, Jacob, whose profile reads like one of the Kens in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. Jacob, a paragon of a boyfriend, has one flaw, traveling too much for work, a pain point for Eddie, and a fissure in their seemingly impenetrable relationship.

While the story centers on Eddie’s doubts and insecurities, it also presents another dimension of this character, a mildly confident, sage, and patient version. Eddie mentors a new colleague Alan, a white man of Polish American descent struggling with tardiness and emotional intelligence at their workplace. Eddie develops a codependent friendship with Alan, passively flirting with him while positioning himself as Alan’s paramour.

You nearly forget Eddie is in a relationship, which he delays revealing to Alan until later
in the book. Alan is the antithesis of Eddie. A neophyte at the job from Pennsylvania, Alan leads with hubris and is the stereotypical Gen-Zer seeking immediate praise and validation. He is narcissistic and insecure and desperately wants to be loved and appreciated. Alan suffers from alcoholism and trauma from verbal and physical abuse throughout his childhood and projects his unprocessed hurt onto his mostly women partners by manipulating them. Upon hearing Alan’s struggles combined with needing to feel valued and seen, Eddie conflates love and lust, as he offers to be Alan’s savior and potential partner.

After a series of events, Eddie and Alan experience sexual attraction leading to foreplay, which Alan refuses to label for fear of being viewed as gay. Alan’s sexual orientation is questionable throughout the story, which provides suggestive hints that he is on the path of discovery. Eddie and Alan’s “situationship” disguised as a “friendship” devolves with each realizing they need to self-care and conclude communication to address the toxicity in their lives.

In reading this story, there is a missing voice…Jacob’s. The last quarter of the book reveals Jacob’s anger after learning that Eddie violated their relationship and was mendacious for years about his “friendship” with Alan. Eddie & Alan picks up the pace and has a fluid rhythm once Amiewalan reveals the denouement.

Before the climax of Eddie & Alan, Jacob’s perspective is not discussed with the same degree of detail and length as Eddie and Alan’s backstory and inner thoughts. It leaves me wondering: What’s Jacob’s upbringing? Did he experience abuse or have his transgressions? Eddie & Alan leaves you wondering, who is Jacob and how did his life story shape his ability to love and forgive Eddie? Who did Jacob date before Eddie and what experiences informed his relationship decisions? Jacob is a mysterious, model character, lacking depth of emotions. His ability to set boundaries reflects Jacob’s
maturity and discernment but doesn’t capture his range of emotions or states of being.

In reflecting on this story, Eddie’s character is both the protagonist and antagonist. His inability to be honest with himself and his loved ones was a lingering issue throughout this story. Eddie’s therapy session redeemed him and provided steadiness to the turbulence of this story. Alan lacked self-awareness and was unfiltered, seldom revealing his shortcomings. I wondered whether Alan explored his sexuality with his friend David, a character weaved in and out of the story. Where’s Alan now? Did Jacob and Alan ever meet?

Eddie & Alan scratched the surface leaving me wondering, will there be a sequel?
1 review
February 23, 2024
Eddie and Alan
What inspires fiction often comes from some form of reality. When I finished reading this book my hand was over my mouth and I was gagged.
All gay men have an Eddie and Alan moment. It teaches us more about ourselves but also surfaces the difficulty of queerness.

The relationship that builds between Eddie and Alan is enticing. In the beginning it’s hard to imagine, characterwise, how someone like Eddie could find Alan the arrogant asshole type so appealing but as you read on the attraction becomes multilayered.

It’s important to say, I think every gay man has a relationship like this with a guy who claims to be straight or is straight. It’s very emotional and difficult and brings back feelings of shame in being gay.
Tender moments/ highlights mild spoiler*
Hearing about the love between Eddie and Jacob was heart warming “initially, I preferred to make love in the dark, but every time I turned the light off, Jacob would switch it back on, saying “I want to see you.”Eventually, I embraced the light. Pg.70
Big gush, soo sweet.

“Did I come all this way to sleep alone while Alan got into a fling with some girl he met on the airplane?”
I live for Eddie’s disposition towards Melissa. Def gurl bye! moments. I would’ve been over her too.
**
Feelings while reading.
I found myself at work reading the book on my phone and finding it really hard to put down before going to the gym for my workout.

Towards the end of the book I couldn’t help but notice Alan unconscious abusiveness towards Eddie. I find that this is common from straight men who are sexually curious but are also so sexually repressed in their attraction to men.
They are more focused on their aversion to the idea of being gay versus the reality that they may be into MSM or men who have sex with men.

There are many barriers that will keep a gay man in the closet and masking as straight and all of the signs are heavy in this book.
Gay men often have straight male friends who do exactly what Alan did to Eddie in this book. They get what they need from a man and go back to women to fulfill their ego and societal expectations.
Its hella fucked up but I’m glad someone wrote their perspective. As a queer man it feels like I have had many relationships with straight men. They have gone further than what Alan was willing to do. So sex yes, kissing yes, full emotional availability yes but outside of closed doors we were friends. They were men who have sex with men relationships but not necessarily gay and their truly is a difference.
It can be exhausting but is another reality for gay men.

In the end what remains consistent in the authors books and his message is that love heals. In this book, Jacob’s love for Eddie and his ability to give Eddie freedom and space walked Eddie on a path to unlock and to begin to heal his inner child. When I finished this book the love balled of triumph and horns in the song “Us against the world” by Christina Milian played in my head.
A wonderful and entertaining read, I laughed, gagged and felt many emotions reading this book. Turn off the tv for an evening or two and entertain yourself with Eddie and Alan. This story pairs well with a bottle of wine and some background music in the evening or when you have some downtime at work. Whatever the setting, it’s an entertaining read that was relatable and enjoyable as watching a series on Netflix.
Profile Image for Al.
1,364 reviews53 followers
March 23, 2024
Years ago I read a memoir written by a then new author that told the story of a high school romance the author had. He and the girl he was involved with were doing great until her parents put an end to it, forbidding them to see each other. Years later, as adults, they ran into each other and things took off again with them eventually getting married. The author’s next book was the same story, told from the perspective of his girlfriend and eventual wife. It turns out that while the big picture was often the same, the way they viewed and interpreted events was often much different. The contrast between the two viewpoints for an outsider was interesting because as an outside observer, a reader who read about events from both sides could understand how both parties came to see things the way they did and it was a reasonable viewpoint, at least based on the information each had.

That’s a lot of words to tell you about a different book, but in the preface of this book the author explains that this novel is going to tell the story of two friends in a first-person narrative style from the viewpoint of both of the main characters, which I’m sure you could guess are named Eddie and Alan. Seeing this explanation upfront I immediately flashed on that set of books above and saw how this approach could work. And it did. That Eddie and Alan are very different from each other in many ways, from the obvious characteristics of race and sexuality, to the different approaches to life, the way they deal with difficult situations, and many other ways only adds to the story with the contrasts helping the reader to understand how people who might be different than the reader might view things. I’ve long thought that one of the things gained by reading is that it puts the reader into the minds and lives of people who are often much different than themself and helps them understand others better as a side-effect. With these two main characters you’re guaranteed at least one of them is going to be much different than you, quite possibly both of them will be, at least in some ways. The result was an interesting and enlightening read.

**Originally written for "Books and Pals" book blog. May have received a free review copy. **
Profile Image for Paul Driver.
12 reviews
April 3, 2024
I'm upset that I didn't get through this book sooner. Life! Every time I walked away from the book to adult, my mind would wonder how Eddie and Alan's story would unfold. I experienced so many different emotions while reading this book and even expressed some of them out loud.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and saw a lot of parallel with my own life. I could easily identify with Eddie and his search for himself with the many identities that he has, whether it was through finding childhood friends, relocating to a different state for personal freedom, or seeking out a psychic or therapist to help make sense of everything. However, I was really surprised at how relatable Alan became the more I read through the story. He is a very layered guy with unaddressed childhood trauma who has not had the chance to address it in a healthy way, leaving a path of destruction.

I appreciated the writing style and giving first hand accounts from both Eddie and Alan's perspective of the same events. It allowed me to be a part of their story and made me feel like I knew them personally. I was rooting for Eddie and Alan. I was also rooting for Eddie and Jacob! Again, this book had my feelings all over the place.

I'm always satisfied finishing a book in a state of curiosity, and Eddie and Alan did just that. This book made me curious about my childhood, my relationship, my current state of being, and what happens next in Eddie's life. Whether we get the answers or not, I am grateful that I was able to experience this work.
1 review2 followers
March 15, 2024
I breezed through this book - I didn't want to put it down - anticipating what would happen next, left wanting more. I still have so many questions!

Eddie & Alan shares the journey of two very relatable characters. I think parts of myself could identify with both. For me specifically, I could identify with Eddie's character as an immigrant child who is looking for acceptance that still bleeds into adulthood, and also not recognizing what we do have sometimes, exploring parts of ourselves that light up based on the environment we find ourselves in. Alan has so many wounds from childhood that also seem unexplored or addressed and though he comes off as a jerk in many ways, I can understand the draw Eddie feels towards him, wanting to explore a friendship, and possibly more, with the "bad boy."

I feel for both of them, drawn to both, and frustrated with both all at the same time. And this is the thing about a scenario like this, the choices we make as humans, friends and partners, it's so complex. Our desires, emotions and needs are complex and we may never actually have the answers. And, this is what makes this story so compelling - this all too familiar experience that the reader feels connected to, perhaps bringing up questions about the readers themselves in the process, looking for answers that may never be addressed and living with them.
1 review
September 3, 2024
A deceptively subtle read. As we alternate between the viewpoint of both protagonists, we are pulled in to their lives and decisions in a way that gradually builds our empathy and investment in both characters so that we end up forgiving (or at least, sympathising about) the bad decisions and behaviours of both men; rooting for them both to grow and find happiness.
When the climax comes it is an emotional shock even though there are hints of its inevitability all along. The calmness in the writing and the matter-of-fact diarised style compound this impact because it is so believably real and immediate.
A short but thought-provoking read: recommended.
1 review1 follower
March 20, 2024
I devoured this book over a single weekend! Amiewalan constructs these incredibly nuanced and complicated characters. I was completely vested in and rooting for the protagonist. And that kept me even more glued to the pages as he subtly created one of the most ingeniously written villains in my opinion. It's clear that the author knows his way around human nature, heart break, dysfunction, baggage, and hope.
1 review
March 20, 2024
Eddie & Alan was a tantalizing read. The story of both protagonists was so thoughtfully written. I loved how we were brought into their history which gave us more than a glimpse into how they showed up today in the present world. I literally couldn't put the book down. I love books that also remind me to reflect on my own life and how I show up today and although this is a work of fiction, this book was both entertaining and like therapy for me. I highly recommend this read!
Profile Image for Jess Tell.
122 reviews3 followers
May 22, 2024
A story of unrequited love, old as time.
If I'd read this as a first draft I would've asked the author to *show* more moments instead of telling the reader how to feel & react. The simplicity in tone is suited to a YA novel but the dull writing style added to my craving for an imaginative moment.
The unchecked misogyny & trope of magical Black characters belied a green author.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews