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bell is Currently Reading

bell is currently reading

The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal

by K.J. Charles (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: lgbtqia, made-me-cry, 2023-favourites, paranormal, queer-historical-romance, kj-charles, t-buddy-cop, currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in October 2023

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bell said:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

" What a goddamn lovely little book. I’ve not read anything quite like this; structurally, it’s episodic-style rather than a one-plot novel, and narratively, it’s a quiet, reclaimed love story of the tenderest kind.

KJC has this ability to write such or What a goddamn lovely little book. I’ve not read anything quite like this; structurally, it’s episodic-style rather than a one-plot novel, and narratively, it’s a quiet, reclaimed love story of the tenderest kind.

KJC has this ability to write such original and unique stories and The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal takes it to another level. As a meta text, the “secret casebook” is the secret love story between two people who were legally and socially not permitted to love one another. This is what I love about KJC so much: she understands the weight of queer history and what it does to an entire people to have the stories of your forebears erased and censored, and she understands how important, vital even, it is to tell them. Obviously this is a fictional story, but something so healing about queer historical romance is this idea of memory. The obscured memories, the gagged histories, the forgotten stories that are forgotten because they were never allowed to be told in the first place, and the subsequent power and relief (like being able to breathe with all of your lungs) of letting them out.

The tragic and heinous thing, though, is that the lost histories are just that- lost. All those people are dead now and they all kept their loves to themselves and burned their letters to avoid punishment and keep each other safe. So the power that rewriting those stories has- creating fictional stories about queer people who loved each other, people who never existed as reality, but creating them in the spirit of all the forgotten ancestors who could never say them out loud.
And my favorite thing about The Secret Casebook is how real Simon and Robert feel. They are not dashing and swashbuckling and debonair in the way romance leads are; they are still Interesting Book Characters, yes, but they feel decidedly raw and their love feels like one you could see shared between two older people holding hands walking down the street.

Perhaps that sense is aided by the episodic structure (I’ve heard before that real life is far less like a novel and more like a collection of short stories, anyways.) And when do you get to read about two older queer people just quietly living in love together they way they do?

And that ending, hnrghhh. That is the end of life that I wish for all who desire it. I know that Simon Feximal and Robert Caldwell did not actually exist, but the spirit of those characters truly did exist in real queer people of that time, this time too, even. And who knows if those real people got such a happy ending, but right now, it’s enough that Simon and Robert did.
That’s hope, isn’t it?

Hope and faith that those who want it will get all the love and peace that they desire. Everyone deserves to have time to spend in peace with the ones they love.
And right now, it’s enough that Simon and Robert did.

And I love that the story is structured as letters to the editor, so that Robert could turn them off, shut out the world to live his own life. As readers, and as people too, we want so much to know everything, every personal detail of others’ lives, but that’s not how we’re meant to be. I feel so many people (I’m guilty of this as well) are not satisfied with what we’re told and do not want the door ever shut in our insatiable greed for more. But here, in this story, Robert closes the door gently but firmly, and that’s it. We will hear no more from Robert and Simon. And that’s good. Their love is not ours to consume. It’s powerful and important that they wanted it told- they should be able to shout their love from the rooftops if they want to. And they should be able to go back inside and close the door, shut the windows, turn off the lights, and love together, in private.
The only love that is ours to consume is our own. ...more "

progress:

(page 169 of 251)
— Oct 04, 2023 06:11AM

Oct 15, 2023 07:57PM · see review