Visible Means of Support

by Helen Joyce Harris

When an impetuous young man is imprisoned for conspiracy to deal cocaine, his mother's shame drives her to keep his whereabouts secret from her friends, colleagues, and most especially from her own distant, aristocratic mother. The cover story requires an elaborate -- sometimes almost absurd -- set of contortions.

Set at the peak of the "Just Say No" era in the late 1980s, Visible Means of Support depicts a young felon's adjustment to life inside the federal correctional system, as well as his mother's struggle with self-blame and her efforts to reconcile herself to her son's plight. Will the trouble tear this small family apart? If the secret leaks, will the people around her delight in spreading this gossip? Will it seal off her chance of promotion at the high school where she teaches? How can either son or mother ever again earn respect? And is the grandmother better off not knowing?

Visible Means of Support deals with universal issues not amenable to easy answers. Told from the points of view of the three main characters, this gripping, provocative, ultimately hopeful story explores the costs of locking away the truth, however unsavory, as well as the potential release to be found in setting it free.

About the Author

Helen Harris has taught reading and composition for forty-four years. She enjoys traveling with her husband, singing, swimming, walking, and reading. She lives in California.

340 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 12, 2020

Reviews

[Vincent DiGirolamo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, I breezed through this book, eager each night to check in with the family and read the latest news about Adam Fiske's drug bust, his schoolteacher mother's shame, and her elderly, patrician mother's suspicions. Yes, middle-class white life in the San Francisco Bay Area is turned upside down when your blue-eyed boy runs afoul of the law. Work, marriage, holidays — all crumble behind the facade of normality. Harris captures this drama superbly, conveying the humorous and depressing inner monologues, banter, and cutting remarks that characterize such a wrenching experience. "My son the felon." There's no getting used to it. But there is time and growth. Yet this is not just a mother's story. The POV shifts seamlessly among the three principal characters, surrounded as they each are by co-workers, lovers, neighbors, sibs, and cellmates. The ditzy, classy, needy girlfriend Christie is like a Rorschach test, read differently by all parties. What a delicious supporting role she plays! The scenes shift from Berkeley to Texarkana to Denver, and provide a potent reminder that the drug wars of the 1980s created a lot of collateral damage, which crossed race and class lines like an ill-gotten Porsche weaving through East Bay traffic.

[AFMasten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read on the plane from New York to California and never looked up. The three characters - mother, son, and grandmother - are compelling. Bits of insight tucked away in their perspectives. A worthwhile and enjoyable read.