Meteor Shower, Herc & Pyotr: Storming Love series, by Atom Yang

[Ulysses]

Meteor Shower, Herc & Pyotr (Storming Love series)
By Atom Yang
MLR Press, 2016
Four stars

When a meteorite destroys your car, you should take it as an omen.

I loved this book, but I confess that the context (you know, apocalypse) made it harder to embrace the romance. That said, Atom Yang is a wonderful writer. He handles dialogue and humor with great elegance. No nonsense, no excess, just crisp, smart, incisive prose.

Hercules, a forty-something Chinese-American psychotherapist with an unlikely name, is in a position not unusual for therapists: helping others but drowning in his own misery. Pyotr, also in his forties, is a Russian-born astrophysicist who’s just moved to the neighborhood. He meets the crumbling Hercules as the neighbors gather to look at the sizzling hole punched through Herc’s engine by a seemingly random meteorite.

Yang is a brilliant observer of human behavior. Herc’s pity-party is funny, but also heart-breaking. At first seen as the victim, we come to understand Hercules as the cause of his own unhappiness, but lose no sympathy for him. Pyotr’s subtle but instant understanding of Herc and his situation is completely believable. His wisdom is not grandiose, but intuitive, tender. Herc’s self-awareness is touching – he knows he’s a mess, and also knows the irony of his own inability to cure himself as he cures (helps, really) his clients.

The larger context of this book within the “Storming Love” series requires it to be traumatic. I suspect that Yang wins the prize for apocalyptic romance here, and somehow he pulled it off. In spite of the genuine unhappiness I felt at the horrific turn of events that is central to the story, I couldn’t help but be caught up in the “carpe diem” fatalism, and to be genuinely inspired by the reminder that life is for the living, and each moment should be treasured as if it were your last.

I want Atom Yang to keep writing. He’s really good. The m/m romance world needs him.