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Falling
In Falling, characters lose their way, figuratively and literally, and confront the profound displacement of modern life. In award-winning author Trebor Healey’s skilled hands, there is a flicker of hope in the hopeless, a way forward in the pathless wood, and a bridge—though rickety and swaying—across even the most harrowing chasm.
- GenresQueer
272 pages, Hardcover
Published September 10, 2019
3 people are currently reading
31 people want to read
About the author
Trebor Healey
23 books53 followersAwarded the 2013 Publishing Triangle Ferro-Grumley Fiction Award for A Horse Named Sorrow, Trebor Healey is also the recipient of the Lambda Literary Foundation's 2013 Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prize and a Violet Quill Award for his first novel Through It Came Bright Colors. His other work includes a collection of poetry, Sweet Son of Pan, and three short story collections, A Perfect Scar & Other Stories, Eros & Dust and the just-released Falling, as well as the speculative fiction novel, Faun. As an editor, he has co-edited two anthologies: Queer & Catholic and Beyond Definition. He lives in Los Angeles and Mexico City. For more information, visit www.treborhealey.com.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 6, 2019
In Falling, Healey, a longtime master of the queer short story, turns his attention to Latin American themes. Many of the stories focus on the twisted and volatile relations between residents of the US and Latin America, though the longest - virtually a novella - is set entirely in Argentina and offers a crash course on that country's fraught political history. Often stuck in complex, sometimes dire, situations, Healey's characters display a vein of humanity that makes one suspect they're based on real people the author has met in his travels. Verdict: this collection is brilliant!
January 1, 2021
Very charming and interesting collection of short stories but my favorite is the novella at the end, "The Orchid", a sort of gay retelling of the story of Eva Peron.
November 12, 2019
I started Trebor Healey ’s book “Falling” in a mad rush trying to get a sense of his style and the content before his arrival for an author’s talk and the easy flow of his writing style made the first few short stories easy to get through in time for his talk. While the stories have falling, in one sense or another, as a part of the story they are explorations into our motivations and passions and limitations as human beings. They are people we know or are, or could, be ourselves. I got as far as the first six before I had the chance to hear Trebor read and learn a bit more about him.
The remaining 4 stories became all the more enjoyable after Trebor’s talk and a chance to have a quiet drink with him the next day. I often find being able to read a story with the author’s cadence, and sometimes accent, in my inner ear makes the work come alive in a way a naive read would not. And this was all the more so learning how much of the main characters are an autobiographical reflection of the author. It gave the final four stories a familiarity, like he was reading them to me, our brief time together making him seem much like the men he portrays.
Healey travels extensively in Central and Southern America and portrays the land, the politics, and the people with a sympathetic but not sentimental understanding of their lived experience and a sense of dignity for their traditions and culture. He evokes the sort of emotions I feel myself when I’ve been in Mexico and so I felt a deeper connection even for the Latin areas I haven’t visited. While I rushed through the first 6 stories, I admit to luxuriating through the final four, savoring them, reluctant to reach the end.
In the opening story, “The Fallen Man”, Healey gives us a man who has literally and mysterious fallen from a hotel balcony and in his dazed confusion he is driven to make a journey to see the Monarch butterflies in Ocampo, a little town on the annual path butterflies take in their generational cycle of renewal and death. Meanwhile, Healey resolves the mystery of who the man is, why he is seeking the butterflies, and whether anyone is looking for him bringing us full circle in the way life works.
In “Nogales”, Trebor explores the consequences of a pursuing a chance encounter when a car almost runs the main character over. And in “The Geography of Plants” we share the anguished debate a political rebel faces when she is pursued by the well-meaning son of a former lover from her youth whose presence dredges the demons she has fought so hard to survive living with. Because the stories deal with the part of the world they do, political issues are often an aspect of the lives of his characters and hence their stories. In “The Orchid” Healey gives us a beautiful lesson in the Argentinean politics of Juan and Eva Peron and the movement named for them through the king-making efforts of Felipe Escobeto’s romantic attempt to elevate a small town youth as the new Evita and recreate a new sense of hope for the Argentinean people – or maybe for himself.
Not all the main characters of Healey’s stories are men, nor are all the men gay men. But his men are portrayed as multi-dimensional people motivated by emotions deeply felt, passions that are complex and not simply sexual, compassions that are deep and not narcissistic, sacrifices that are considered and not only self-serving. In a period where legitimate concerns over toxic-masculinity, patriarchy, and an often clichéd portrayal of gay maleness have often delivered male characters that are flat, self-interested, or stereotypical to the point where it is hard to relate to them Healey delivers feeling, romantic men infused with a colourful range of emotions, faults, and heroic elements that render them full people and not simply rainbow-washed gender-archetypes in the evolving social-reconstruction of our times. He allows maleness in a refreshing way that takes nothing away from fluidity or femininity.
That chatting with Healey suggests to me that this is his ethos, and not a literary technique, and made me think I saw more of the man, than the author, in stories like “Abilardo and Rodrigo” and kept it from being just another, albeit beautifully devised, story where a father finds resolution of his grief in needs of the Mexican orphans he volunteers to aid.
I needed a copy of Trebor’s book quickly and so ordered one in as you might do from your independent bookseller if you don’t find it immediately in your local bookshop. But seek it out; give it as a holiday gift or other kindness to a reader, for whether to yourself or another – it is a kindness to read these stories. “Falling” has started me on a search for his other works and greater interest in this author’s personal work helping Central and Southern American people.
The remaining 4 stories became all the more enjoyable after Trebor’s talk and a chance to have a quiet drink with him the next day. I often find being able to read a story with the author’s cadence, and sometimes accent, in my inner ear makes the work come alive in a way a naive read would not. And this was all the more so learning how much of the main characters are an autobiographical reflection of the author. It gave the final four stories a familiarity, like he was reading them to me, our brief time together making him seem much like the men he portrays.
Healey travels extensively in Central and Southern America and portrays the land, the politics, and the people with a sympathetic but not sentimental understanding of their lived experience and a sense of dignity for their traditions and culture. He evokes the sort of emotions I feel myself when I’ve been in Mexico and so I felt a deeper connection even for the Latin areas I haven’t visited. While I rushed through the first 6 stories, I admit to luxuriating through the final four, savoring them, reluctant to reach the end.
In the opening story, “The Fallen Man”, Healey gives us a man who has literally and mysterious fallen from a hotel balcony and in his dazed confusion he is driven to make a journey to see the Monarch butterflies in Ocampo, a little town on the annual path butterflies take in their generational cycle of renewal and death. Meanwhile, Healey resolves the mystery of who the man is, why he is seeking the butterflies, and whether anyone is looking for him bringing us full circle in the way life works.
In “Nogales”, Trebor explores the consequences of a pursuing a chance encounter when a car almost runs the main character over. And in “The Geography of Plants” we share the anguished debate a political rebel faces when she is pursued by the well-meaning son of a former lover from her youth whose presence dredges the demons she has fought so hard to survive living with. Because the stories deal with the part of the world they do, political issues are often an aspect of the lives of his characters and hence their stories. In “The Orchid” Healey gives us a beautiful lesson in the Argentinean politics of Juan and Eva Peron and the movement named for them through the king-making efforts of Felipe Escobeto’s romantic attempt to elevate a small town youth as the new Evita and recreate a new sense of hope for the Argentinean people – or maybe for himself.
Not all the main characters of Healey’s stories are men, nor are all the men gay men. But his men are portrayed as multi-dimensional people motivated by emotions deeply felt, passions that are complex and not simply sexual, compassions that are deep and not narcissistic, sacrifices that are considered and not only self-serving. In a period where legitimate concerns over toxic-masculinity, patriarchy, and an often clichéd portrayal of gay maleness have often delivered male characters that are flat, self-interested, or stereotypical to the point where it is hard to relate to them Healey delivers feeling, romantic men infused with a colourful range of emotions, faults, and heroic elements that render them full people and not simply rainbow-washed gender-archetypes in the evolving social-reconstruction of our times. He allows maleness in a refreshing way that takes nothing away from fluidity or femininity.
That chatting with Healey suggests to me that this is his ethos, and not a literary technique, and made me think I saw more of the man, than the author, in stories like “Abilardo and Rodrigo” and kept it from being just another, albeit beautifully devised, story where a father finds resolution of his grief in needs of the Mexican orphans he volunteers to aid.
I needed a copy of Trebor’s book quickly and so ordered one in as you might do from your independent bookseller if you don’t find it immediately in your local bookshop. But seek it out; give it as a holiday gift or other kindness to a reader, for whether to yourself or another – it is a kindness to read these stories. “Falling” has started me on a search for his other works and greater interest in this author’s personal work helping Central and Southern American people.
October 29, 2019
I don't tend to read short stories (I know, my loss), I mostly read novels and non-fiction. But I was not going to let habit get in the way of reading a new book by Trebor Healey! Trebor has spent a lot of time in Mexico and Argentina over the years, and these stories are mostly set there, or on the U.S. border with Mexico. My favorite is "Rite of Passage," no doubt because I had the pleasure of being there when he read it at Dog-Eared Books in the Castro; his reading gave it the feeling of a wild ride, and no doubt remembering his voice enhanced the enjoyment of reading it myself on the page (but you don't need to have been there to enjoy it). I was not crazy about the ending of the first story, "Fallen Man," but the more I think about it, the more I give the author credit for taking it where he did, even if I found it startling. Overall, the stories show the range of the author's many talents as a storyteller, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and sometimes a bit of both, but always compelling. I am sure this is one of those books that will reward repeated re-readings. Highly recommended!
October 14, 2019
Set mostly in Mexico and Argentina, Healey's new collection of short stories range from young men finding themselves, to a widower finding a new form of family, plus a lot of political intrigue in stories that weave history and fiction.
A security guard encounters 'ghosts' in an abandoned building. A man falls from a building, can't remember his name or life, yet feels compelled to witness mass butterfly migrations. A nun with a revolutionary past confronts her familial heritage.
The longest story, "The Orchid," is told in a confessional style by a political 'kingmaker' who brings a new form of Peronism to Argentina via a gay candidate and his youthful set-up romance. Given the troubled history of the countries where the stories are set, most of them carry a tragic tone while offering a grace of humanity, empathy, and hope.
A security guard encounters 'ghosts' in an abandoned building. A man falls from a building, can't remember his name or life, yet feels compelled to witness mass butterfly migrations. A nun with a revolutionary past confronts her familial heritage.
The longest story, "The Orchid," is told in a confessional style by a political 'kingmaker' who brings a new form of Peronism to Argentina via a gay candidate and his youthful set-up romance. Given the troubled history of the countries where the stories are set, most of them carry a tragic tone while offering a grace of humanity, empathy, and hope.
January 9, 2021
A master of short story and novel forms, Trebor Healey is worth seeking out.
Clear prose, a great observational eye, no nonsense. Human nature laid bare, that sort of thing.
Especially liked the stories in this collection set in Argentina.
I've read this collection twice, several months apart. Enjoyed both times.
Clear prose, a great observational eye, no nonsense. Human nature laid bare, that sort of thing.
Especially liked the stories in this collection set in Argentina.
I've read this collection twice, several months apart. Enjoyed both times.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews