The Problem with Mistletoe, by Kyle Baxter

[Ulysses]

The Problem with Mistletoe
By Kyle Baxter
Published by the author 2019
Four stars

This was a good book for the season, especially a holiday season during a global pandemic. The basic rom-com set up (this would be a fun movie) is two young men in their early thirties, David Cooper (Coop) and Alexander Capili (Alex). David is a nurse in his hometown hospital, raising his eight-year-old son Eric as a single dad. There is an extensive and important backstory, during which David married his high-school sweetheart, became a pro hockey player, moved to Chicago, divorced, and returned home as a nurse. That’s a lot, but it isn’t dumped on you all at once. The revelations of these details expand our understanding of this big, handsome jock.

By contrast, Alex Capili has returned to his hometown temporarily after a fifteen-year absence, just for the holidays, to help his aunt and uncle Capili with their hugely successful Italian restaurant. (The Capilis are not Italian, the explanation of which is a favorite detail of mine in this book.) Alex’s backstory, it seems, is simple: he left Edgedale (a fictional New England town) after high school, suddenly and without saying goodbye to anyone—including David Cooper, his best friend. He went to New York City, apparently finished his education, joined a catering company called Five Points Catering, all the while developing his passion as a playwright in the off-Broadway world of the Big Apple. He has built a life away from Edgedale, and his return causes a stir in what used to be a small town.

The emotional richness of this story sits entirely within the “why” of Alex’s abrupt departure fifteen years earlier at the age of eighteen. David seems to think he left for one reason, but truly doesn’t understand what drove Alex away. Alex, for his part, doesn’t understand David’s confusion, and both of them are skittish as they try to rekindle a friendship that ended sadly.

To add to the rom-com sweetness, David’s mother, Tandi Cooper, is the widow of Edgedale’s beloved mayor, and co-founder of a local charity—Cooper Youth Services—that focuses on the needs of at-risk children and teens. The overarching plot revolves around a fundraising Christmas party for CYS that David and his mother are planning, and Alex Capili’s unanticipated role in that holiday project. For me, the most appealing secondary character was David’s son Eric, whose own backstory is as poignant as his father’s love for him is unshakeable.

The story is spiced generously with other secondary characters, beyond David’s mother and son, from Alex’s aunt and uncle, to their mutual childhood friend, a trans woman named Bonnie, and an over-zealous fellow nurse with her eyes set on David’s athletic form. The distractions of the holiday seasons and work-related emergencies keep David and Alex from sitting down and talking over the rift in their friendship. There is a moment when I wanted to smack them both and just make them shut up and TALK to each other. But this is the way of romantic comedy.

Now that Hallmark and Lifetime are both producing holiday romances with gay couples, I hope stories like this will begin to appear on the small screen to make our holidays brighter. This book, and it’s author’s fine, emotionally adept writing, certainly cheered mine.