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Down Time

 "Down Time"--by a writer I love, Andrew Martin--is a novel in which very little happens. It's almost shocking that something so "unresolved" still found a publisher. On the website "Book Marks," literary novels rarely earn a "pan" designation. But one magazine did actually "pan" this book.


And yet I really liked "Down Time." The center is Aaron, a gifted writer of short stories who is drinking himself to death. "I think I might need to go back to a place," he says to his spouse, Cassandra, after having thrown himself into a bonfire at a party. But, in rehab, Aaron meets a troubled young man, Xavier, and discovers that he (Aaron) enjoys gay sex (first exclusively on the top, but ultimately in every possible position).


In the months after rehab, Aaron continues to see Xavier but keeps this a secret from Cassandra. The disturbed marriage endures several months in a "pandemic pod" with Aaron's stepmother. (This is a darkly funny section in which Aaron's young stepbrother recalls a teacher's full-scale nervous breakdown. "One of the other kids, he started pretending that his Zoom was on mute? So he just kept making crazy faces at the teacher. Then she started clawing at her cheeks and screaming? I guess, like, the principal will deal with it....")


When Xavier dies, Aaron has to admit to himself that he has felt more than mild affection in his heart. His collapse/confession is (of course) the end of his marriage. At the end of the book, it's not clear that he is "redeemed" or "recovered" or even fully out of the closet. He is just humming along--living in terror--trying to care for his slightly bitter (and hospitalized) dad. He considers having an honest father/son conversation, then squirms, then dismisses the thought from his head.


I don't think this book is for everyone. It has earned comparisons to Sally Rooney--but I think Andrew Martin is much funnier than Sally Rooney. Aaron's company pulled me through my weekend and made me smile--and it's hard to ask for anything more.

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