Pederson is such a well armed writer, so it was a pleasure to read such rich language from a technical view, and an honour to read from an emotional view. It is also so bizarre to read this, knowing the places he is talking about are sometimes quite literally next door to me. He talks about how as he writes this, his word processor refuses to even acknowledge the term 'Boy friends' and the way he describes people is so beautiful, so I pray with all my might that these people have read this and seen how loved they are. To be described as Michael describes...
For a few pages at the beginning, he almost lost me; I couldn't digest the flowery descriptions and my mind was not patient enough. But I loved the concept so much I wanted to give it the time of day. Initially, the Curfew segments lagged and felt stagnant to the memories he interspersed (was this the point?: to portray grief as this time-stopper and the memories as revitalisers?- also side point: Focus on Curfew because their time was up?)
And my other criticism was that I imagine he was trying to be honest with us exposing the Katharine Kilalea scenes, but it just seemed to dig his hole further for me; it turned him from this flawed but trying underdog into this unlikeable man with issues- who is at least honest to some degree. I know that grief turns us all in to different people so him noting this here is not necessarily a reflection of his best self (and maybe that was an artistic choice to show grief in its true light) but I still think she deserved a better apology than this. And somehow in a memoir fundamentally dedicated first and foremost to friends, he still strikes me as quite self-centred.
Nevertheless, I loved the discussion of his love so intimately here. His relationships are not sexual nor romantic, but also not not. It can be more than those without being them. It's not a competition. He has this intense love for this man and these people and that can be it. This can be his life. Turning postcards and a bottle of wine into this heart wrenching story is so beautiful and how oysters cropped up throughout was touching. Realising that the author photo at the back was taken from one of he and Scott for their book wrecked me a little, but reemphasised how this book was not just a story and how everything we do when we survive our loved ones, includes them.