The Language of Love and Loss by Bart Yates

There is much to like in this book, and the beginning chapters are its strongest argument for quality. The character of the poet-mother is complicated, and the scenes in which Noah arrives for his visit, learns the news about her health, and reawakens his feelings for his old home town, are fine work. The novel is an exploration of family, trauma, and the collisions involved in this territory. Nothing in the book breaks much new ground but the writing is clear and insightful and a bit daring. Noah, the protagonist, learns that his mother wants to find the daughter who was given away in adoption when she was twelve years old – a shocking age for a girl to give birth. Her own father is the father of her child. This was enough to keep me reading. The ensuing entanglements don’t stop there but spread out through the blood family and the chosen family. There are some very good scenes where all this explodes, as one might expect. All the complications are well chosen and well handled, though I won’t go into them all. But the problem here is Noah himself, who is an often nasty piece of work, both in his thoughts, which drive the book, and in his behavior. I disliked him from the beginning, softened toward him in the early chapters, but went back to disliking him in the middle and end. This is not the usual problem of a character who is written to be imperfect and I certainly don’t need to admire all the protagonists of books I read. But Noah is not really examined, and the book is written much as if he were three inches from my nose chattering away. When his old flame leaves his husband and comes back to him I felt myself cheering for the husband and a little sorry that something good happened to Noah. Maybe I’m just irritable because it’s Christmas.