Marshall Thornton, The Lies that Bind, Boystown 8

[Ulysses]

Here we have once more the gritty streets of Chicago, the looming shadow of AIDS, and yet another confusing murder that leads Nick Nowak circling back into familiar, dark territory. But there’s something new here, something I noticed in the last book. Hope. A sense of self-worth. Nick’s own deeply embedded guilt and self-doubt are mitigated by his growing feelings for soon-to-be-ex-priest Joseph Biernacki. Indeed, in the midst of the confusion and ugliness that the murder unleashes in his life, it is this relationship that is at the core of “The Lies that Bind,” and that gives it emotional weight. Having set aside much of his anger, Nowak “wanted things to be easy for a change.” But, of course, easy isn’t going to happen. There are two moments in this book where I felt sucker-punched, and had to stop to fight back tears.

With all the moral ambiguity of working for the legal team defending elderly mobster Jimmy English, Nick finds his own moral compass in acts of kindness and gentle generosity. He comes to the aid of Christian Baylor, an ambitious twink he doesn’t really like, but whom his late lover Harker liked. He takes Joseph on a road trip to Normal to answer the cry for help of his friend and sometime lover Ross, slowly dying of AIDS and surrounded by his ultra-religious family. He still has Sunday dinner with Harker’s mother and the teenage boy he’s team-parenting with other gay friends.

In the earlier books, Nick indulged in all sorts of sex, before the concept of “safe sex” existed; using it as a kind of shield against unwanted emotions. By the eighth volume, sex has come to mean more to Nick—not just because of the threat of AIDS and the loss of Harker, but because of his ability to associate sex with more tender emotions. A fascinating exception to that is a curiously arousing bondage moment with a young man named Kell Grant. It seems sort of pointless, other than as an odd “how-to” lesson that Grant seems to think Nick needs. In fact, it seems to clarify, both to Nick and to the reader, just how far he’s come emotionally.

Most appealing of all is the way Marshall has seeded little bits of sharp, wry humor throughout the book, often in small throwaway lines and minor details. When a dubious detective who doesn’t know his history with the police department asks him, “Why’d you leave the CPD?”; he responds: “Creative differences.” The Nick in book one couldn’t have made that little joke. This Nick, for all the sorrow and violence he’s experienced, can laugh at his life, now that he feels it’s finally worth living.