Reviews
“Has Grindr killed psychic gay powers?” A spiritual companion to Forever, by the same author Thomas Moore, this novel shows vignettes of a young gay man, dropping us into his life and we as the reader watch as he navigates his life, feeling lost. Alone follows the unnamed narrator and his boyfriend Daniel as their relationship disintegrates. While trying to cope with the end of the relationship, the narrator reflects on his childhood, contemplates the nature of loneliness, reflects on how the internet and hookup apps have changed modern courtship, and feels nostalgia for the days of public cruising. In Alone, the narrator is overburdened by his emotions and his sense of loneliness. Rather than seeking connection, he’s more trying to learn to cope with and love being alone. I found this very relatable, and a lot of the protagonist’s inner thoughts have been things that I have felt throughout my life. I think writers always leave a part of themselves in their stories, regardless of the content of the actual story, and I think I found myself comforted by how much I related to the protagonist and vulnerable parts that the author chose to weave throughout the story. This was comforting despite the sad and dark content. There’s a certain kind of loneliness that queer men experience that isn’t talked about, especially during their coming-of-age and their adolescence. The parts of the story where the unnamed protagonist looks to dead queer men and boys and finds himself empathizing with them and their stories to be very real and relatable. I think this is something that all queer men go through growing up, desperately trying to look to other people who have lived like them and see where they ended up, a desperate attempt at understanding and hope for something better. The passages in this novel about loving to be alone without loneliness sung to me. I loved how certain passages spoke about monogamy and heteronormative relationships, and how queer people don’t naturally see themselves in these kind of dynamics because they never got the opportunity to when they were young, they were never made to feel like they could, so when they could, they didn’t. The passage about finding intimacy in strangers was something that connected with me deeply and is something that I’ve found to be true throughout my life. I’ve never envied or sought out a normal relationship simply because it never appealed to me, I was always comforted by the fleeting nights I’d spend with strangers travelling, and it was almost more romantic and clandestine if I never spoke or heard from them ever again, but just knowing that we connected intimately, crossed paths against all odds of us never meeting, and knowing they’re out there somewhere, adrift in life much like me. I don’t think heteronormative people can understand that feeling unless they’ve been outsiders their whole lives. I loved how the protagonist likens the unspoken signals for sex to mind reading and being psychic. I loved that he spoke about how his time reading people while cruising let him read people in the heteronormative world, and how it helped him figure people out and know what they want before even they did. I related to him when he said that the time of hookup apps threw a wrench in all of this for him, since it was a new language and a new type of skill not taught to him. This is so real for queer men of different generations, so often do you realize the chasms between experiences when talking to queer men from different generations. It can seem isolating, even among the isolated. I liked how the protagonist likened cruising for sex with strangers to be more truthful and primal than the performative dance of heteronormative dating, how the sex he has with a stranger in a park bathroom is more honest than the performance of marriage, and I found that to be so impactful and true. I loved how this book deconstructs monogamy and heteronormativity, and I loved the rumination on what it means to be alone, and being alone as a choice. The conversation towards the end about suicide is going to be controversial to a lot of readers, but I found it comforting and true in a way that doesn’t idealize it or romanticize it. There’s something beautiful in the idea of living and dying alone, but I think a lot of people (because of how they grew up) won’t understand that. But I do, and so does Thomas Moore. And I think that that’s beautiful and ineffable. “Strangers have given me the most romantic and exciting nights of my life. For brief moments I have felt like I have been able to know them as well as I know myself - I'm able to put that much into the interactions. On the right night, I've been able to lose myself fully and to know a person in as deep a way as is possible. Once the night has been over, I haven't forced myself to try to keep them - to try and own them - to ask them to be in a relationship with me - I can feel strong enough to carry on without them but to have been lucky to have met them for however long and to have shared a kind of intimacy that I just don't think can exist between the hetero-normative couple, ten years into their relationship, trying to compromise all of the time.”
