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Off the Record
Freelance journalist David Cronkwright needs to finish a magazine article to avoid being evicted from his apartment. The subject is Nic Leduc, a younger, queer filmmaker on track to win an Oscar. But when David gets to Montreal, Nic refuses to be interviewed.
Instead, Nic drags David all over the city—to his stylist, to a karaoke night, to a hiking trail on a mountain. Nic takes him to a party where David realizes how lonely Nic’s success has made him, that perhaps, what they both need is to learn to trust each other.
Instead, Nic drags David all over the city—to his stylist, to a karaoke night, to a hiking trail on a mountain. Nic takes him to a party where David realizes how lonely Nic’s success has made him, that perhaps, what they both need is to learn to trust each other.
- GenresRomance
228 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 24, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 24, 2023
I wound up loving this, so I'm going to leave the one seriously off-putting moment for the end of the review. But it comes very early and came within a hair of making me DNF ... IDK, maybe if the author sees this review, she'll change it?
The book description is pretty much spot-on, as far as it goes; what it omits, because you can't convey it in two short paragraphs anyway, is the sheer beauty & poignancy of the MCs' characterizations. For that matter, I'm not going to be able to convey the effect in a review, either, because it depends on an accumulation of small touches.
Nic's loneliness had me crying by 17%. I highlighted that bit. He's at a party: "The fridge bore two photos of Clara [the host] with friends Nic had never met. He would have counted her as one of his best friends, and he didn’t know these people."
Here's Nic, thinking about his ex-boyfriend: "He thought about Tristan then, and how Tristan had introduced him to his dog, Laser. It had happened in Tristan’s living room. Tristan had called over the dog, a golden retriever with his mouth open in what looked like a smile. Growing up, Nic had never been allowed to have a dog. His mom was allergic. He’d rubbed around Laser’s neck and his ears, then put his face against the soft warmth of Laser’s fur. 'Maybe he’ll be your dog one day too,' Tristan had said, and Nic had let his heart burst a little from the sound of that. The hope had been painful, then, it was so strong."
At that point in the book, we already know that Tristan dumped Nic abruptly very soon after that evening. Part of what makes the introduction to Laser so touching is that Rand doesn't remind us of the breakup right then, so as you read you sort of happen upon the memory in parallel with Nic doing the same.
Nic has been out since he was a teenager and he's waiting to find out if his latest film will be Canada's nomination for the foreign-film Academy Award, whereas David is not only newly out of the closet (in his early forties, which is made believable by his upbringing) but also about $70 and an overdrawn credit card away from homelessness. The places to which Nic drags him entail eating in restaurants David can't pay for and wearing clothes he doesn't own, so everything goes on Nic's credit card. This could feel so sleazy, but David needs the interview desperately; you can see why he feels boxed into going along. At the same time, Nic's loneliness plainly has everything to do with why he's trying so hard to keep David with him, and David, who's a kind soul, is responding to that yearning as much as to his own agenda. He doesn't for a minute believe that he's more than a diversion to Nic. Here they are at a Tim Horton's on the highway, looking at a keychain with a little stuffed-beaver ornament. They have a brief exchange about the keychain & the fact that there's a person somewhere behind it, who made it. Then:
“I’m going to get this for you,” David said. “So you’ll remember me.”
Nic glanced back. “You don’t have any money.”
“It’s five bucks. I have five bucks.” David took the keychain out of Nic’s hand and walked to the counter. He opened his wallet and dropped a bill. In the car, he handed Nic the beaver, and Nic propped it in front of the radio.
It's such a small moment but there's so much going on in it -- how they're both interested in the stories behind things that seem inconsiderable to most of us; how David thinks of himself as forgettable; how he wants to mean something to Nic, which also implies that Nic means something to him; and how Nic doesn't put this token away but sets it where he can look at it -- that is, he understands the implication, and the feeling of being significant to someone is novel enough that he wants to keep it in the foreground.
Here's David, thinking of their future lives, in which Nic has left David behind:
He imagined that trajectory. A media release saying the film would premiere at Cannes. The images of Nic at parties, on the red carpet, in newspapers and magazines. Buzz would ripple across social media. Then there’d be the heart-stopping photos, Ivy asking David if he’d seen it, and then— David had a feeling on this— the inevitable Oscar nomination. It would be dreadful to sit in his apartment, alone, laptop in his lap, clicking through the images. He liked to imagine he wouldn’t resent Nic when he looked at them.
Oof, that last line. I love how human David is right there; so often in romance novels where the MCs have disparate worldly success/fame/whatever, the less privileged or lucky one is so self-abnegating that no part of him begrudges the other's position. David's lonely and expects to continue being lonely, and though he recognizes Nic's loneliness he's not yet ready to believe that risking himself will win him anything he wants.
I could go on quoting, or just listing the aspects of Off the Record that enrich the love story: Nic's right-wing, Quebec-separatist father, who doesn't speak to him; David's close relationship with his ex-wife and her husband; David's shrouded, only half-acknowledged teenage crush on his next-door neighbor Kellen; the way his history makes his hesitation and self-consciousness about being visibly gay believable; Nic's almost reflexive creativity, which turns every landscape and street scene into a fragment of screenplay (but which also, maybe, keeps him out of the moment).
A spoiler about the 80% breakup you're going to see coming:
Now for the bit that nearly made me DNF. The reason David is so desperate is that he's had a streak of professional bad luck, which began when he interviewed a rape victim who, when he fact-checked her story, proved to be lying.
OH BOY. Here's why I didn't DNF right there: it seemed likely-verging-on-obvious that in constructing a backstory for David that would leave a competent journalist broke, Kelly Rand remembered the debacle at Rolling Stone in 2014, when the magazine published a story about a gang rape that didn't happen, and that Rand incorporated a version of that episode while somehow having a moment of obliviousness about the whole "women routinely lie about rape" narrative. So there you have it. It's a bad blip, but I would've been sorry to miss out on the rest of Off the Record on its account.
There's one other moment I didn't care for, when David compares a blowjob from Nic with the not-great blowjobs he's gotten from women, which ... why couldn't the blowjob just be better because David's super into Nic and wasn't into women much at all? At least he's not blaming his lovely ex-wife, with whom it's been established he barely had sex. Sigh. ISTG if it weren't for these moments I would have thought Off the Record just about perfect. As it is, 4.75 stars, rounded up.
The book description is pretty much spot-on, as far as it goes; what it omits, because you can't convey it in two short paragraphs anyway, is the sheer beauty & poignancy of the MCs' characterizations. For that matter, I'm not going to be able to convey the effect in a review, either, because it depends on an accumulation of small touches.
Nic's loneliness had me crying by 17%. I highlighted that bit. He's at a party: "The fridge bore two photos of Clara [the host] with friends Nic had never met. He would have counted her as one of his best friends, and he didn’t know these people."
Here's Nic, thinking about his ex-boyfriend: "He thought about Tristan then, and how Tristan had introduced him to his dog, Laser. It had happened in Tristan’s living room. Tristan had called over the dog, a golden retriever with his mouth open in what looked like a smile. Growing up, Nic had never been allowed to have a dog. His mom was allergic. He’d rubbed around Laser’s neck and his ears, then put his face against the soft warmth of Laser’s fur. 'Maybe he’ll be your dog one day too,' Tristan had said, and Nic had let his heart burst a little from the sound of that. The hope had been painful, then, it was so strong."
At that point in the book, we already know that Tristan dumped Nic abruptly very soon after that evening. Part of what makes the introduction to Laser so touching is that Rand doesn't remind us of the breakup right then, so as you read you sort of happen upon the memory in parallel with Nic doing the same.
Nic has been out since he was a teenager and he's waiting to find out if his latest film will be Canada's nomination for the foreign-film Academy Award, whereas David is not only newly out of the closet (in his early forties, which is made believable by his upbringing) but also about $70 and an overdrawn credit card away from homelessness. The places to which Nic drags him entail eating in restaurants David can't pay for and wearing clothes he doesn't own, so everything goes on Nic's credit card. This could feel so sleazy, but David needs the interview desperately; you can see why he feels boxed into going along. At the same time, Nic's loneliness plainly has everything to do with why he's trying so hard to keep David with him, and David, who's a kind soul, is responding to that yearning as much as to his own agenda. He doesn't for a minute believe that he's more than a diversion to Nic. Here they are at a Tim Horton's on the highway, looking at a keychain with a little stuffed-beaver ornament. They have a brief exchange about the keychain & the fact that there's a person somewhere behind it, who made it. Then:
“I’m going to get this for you,” David said. “So you’ll remember me.”
Nic glanced back. “You don’t have any money.”
“It’s five bucks. I have five bucks.” David took the keychain out of Nic’s hand and walked to the counter. He opened his wallet and dropped a bill. In the car, he handed Nic the beaver, and Nic propped it in front of the radio.
It's such a small moment but there's so much going on in it -- how they're both interested in the stories behind things that seem inconsiderable to most of us; how David thinks of himself as forgettable; how he wants to mean something to Nic, which also implies that Nic means something to him; and how Nic doesn't put this token away but sets it where he can look at it -- that is, he understands the implication, and the feeling of being significant to someone is novel enough that he wants to keep it in the foreground.
Here's David, thinking of their future lives, in which Nic has left David behind:
He imagined that trajectory. A media release saying the film would premiere at Cannes. The images of Nic at parties, on the red carpet, in newspapers and magazines. Buzz would ripple across social media. Then there’d be the heart-stopping photos, Ivy asking David if he’d seen it, and then— David had a feeling on this— the inevitable Oscar nomination. It would be dreadful to sit in his apartment, alone, laptop in his lap, clicking through the images. He liked to imagine he wouldn’t resent Nic when he looked at them.
Oof, that last line. I love how human David is right there; so often in romance novels where the MCs have disparate worldly success/fame/whatever, the less privileged or lucky one is so self-abnegating that no part of him begrudges the other's position. David's lonely and expects to continue being lonely, and though he recognizes Nic's loneliness he's not yet ready to believe that risking himself will win him anything he wants.
I could go on quoting, or just listing the aspects of Off the Record that enrich the love story: Nic's right-wing, Quebec-separatist father, who doesn't speak to him; David's close relationship with his ex-wife and her husband; David's shrouded, only half-acknowledged teenage crush on his next-door neighbor Kellen; the way his history makes his hesitation and self-consciousness about being visibly gay believable; Nic's almost reflexive creativity, which turns every landscape and street scene into a fragment of screenplay (but which also, maybe, keeps him out of the moment).
A spoiler about the 80% breakup you're going to see coming:
Now for the bit that nearly made me DNF. The reason David is so desperate is that he's had a streak of professional bad luck, which began when he interviewed a rape victim who, when he fact-checked her story, proved to be lying.
OH BOY. Here's why I didn't DNF right there: it seemed likely-verging-on-obvious that in constructing a backstory for David that would leave a competent journalist broke, Kelly Rand remembered the debacle at Rolling Stone in 2014, when the magazine published a story about a gang rape that didn't happen, and that Rand incorporated a version of that episode while somehow having a moment of obliviousness about the whole "women routinely lie about rape" narrative. So there you have it. It's a bad blip, but I would've been sorry to miss out on the rest of Off the Record on its account.
There's one other moment I didn't care for, when David compares a blowjob from Nic with the not-great blowjobs he's gotten from women, which ... why couldn't the blowjob just be better because David's super into Nic and wasn't into women much at all? At least he's not blaming his lovely ex-wife, with whom it's been established he barely had sex. Sigh. ISTG if it weren't for these moments I would have thought Off the Record just about perfect. As it is, 4.75 stars, rounded up.
July 25, 2023
Continuity
errors are brutal, but—
such lonely yearning.
4.5 rounded down, but—
So full of feelings
deeply held but only glan-
cingly acknowledged.
errors are brutal, but—
such lonely yearning.
4.5 rounded down, but—
So full of feelings
deeply held but only glan-
cingly acknowledged.
Read
September 2, 2023Journalist and famous filmmaker MC
January 25, 2023
This was an interesting read. The writing itself, and characters were very well done, but the story was quite sad. David is a mid forties gay journalist, who has finally decided to come out after the divorce with his wife. He is brand new into the dating scene, and is finding out first hand how awful online dating can be. Nic is a famous prodigy director, and the focus of the article David needs to finish to keep from being evicted and make his bills. Nic is known as an arrogant, strange and standoffish artist, who is notoriously bad to interview. What we come to learn is that he comes from a very broken home, has been diagnosed as high functioning neurodivergent, and is just plain lonely. The story itself dives into the way David's observation skills allow him to get to know and understand Nic almost better then he knows himself, and the way that leads Nic into trusting and falling quite quickly for him. I do think the story feels a little unfinished, even though we get a nice peak into the near future at the end. I feel the neurodivergence was a large part of that feeling. Yes it gave reason for a few of Nics mannerisms, but it didn't really contribute to the story as a whole, and it was never even addressed with David. I also believe this was the author's first foray into MM romance, and it was a little obvious in the intimate scenes. I was not disappointed with this story overall, it was full of heart and some humor, I was just left wanting more.
January 24, 2023
This is the first story I’ve read by this author. There is plenty of low self esteem to go around here. David who at 44 is new at being gay. He really knew there was something not right with his marriage when they only slept together maybe once a month and they were better friends than lovers. But he is now divorced and bff’s with his ex Ivy and she encourages him that things will work out for him. He is on the verge of being evicted from his apartment with the only hope of paying his rent is a GQ interview he needs to write about Nicolas Leduc. He has hear all sorts of rumors about Nic with him having all those stereotype celebrity quirks. But David finds there are unique things about Nic but difficult isn’t exactly the word he would use. This is a age gap, David 44 and Nic 26, story that adds to the lack of self esteem for David. Nic is lonely, being the celebrity who is wanted for what he can give others. Together there are plenty of funny moments. Nic driving made me hold my breath. Both of them thinking back on other sort of relationships is sad. Trying to build Nic up over his work and his chances for the awards and David trying to earn enough to pay rent and feeling he is good enough for Nic, plays big parts of the story.
July 27, 2023
Wish it was longer. Felt like gay literary fiction.
February 14, 2024
3.5 stars
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews