Getting Over Homer
Mark O'Donnell
Getting Over Homer zings with one-liners and wordplay worthy of S.J. Perelman. It is chockful of comic notions: A musical comedy version of The Odyssey ; poofy Fire Island weekends with wealthy grown men called Phizz and Cuddles; 11-year-old clebrities on the Ed Sullivan Show.
Unfortunately, all of O'Donnell's witty set-pieces and oddball details prove to be mere surface decoration on what proves to be a rather generic novel at base: Gay man from midwest moves to the perceived glamour of New York, pines for romance, falls in love, gets dumped, repeats steps 2, 3, and 4, wonders if he'll ever find true love. Fade out. If this is one of the first gay-themed novels you read, its fine, especially because of the humorous leavening. If you're an avid reader, it's hackneyed despite the yuks.
The book's section headings point to its uninventiveness: the first 35 pages, deemed "My, You Know, Life," fill us in, rather chattily, on narrator Blue Monahan's formative years in an Ohio family of 12 kids. Before we have much reason to care about Blue now we get to suffer through his oft-told anecdotes. It makes you feel like you're on a bad first date, not reading a book.
O'Donnell, whose previous books, Elementary Education and the critically admired Vertigo have been collections of brief comic bits, is at his best within the constraints of quick hits and rimshot observations. He has a great eye for telltale cultural artifacts and attitudes, often forgoing plot or character development for witty stand-up style riffs: As Blue rides home on the subway one day, he stares at a woman reading a fashion magazine with the headline "BEAUTY IS BACK!—as if ugliness had ever been given a chance—and underneath, more startlingly, Can You Hold Onto Your Man? You'll never see a men's magazine with the headline Can You Hold Onto Your Woman? Holding on is not a top male priority." This is funny, thoughtful stuff; Dave Barry with triple-the-usual gender consciousness.
O'Donnell blesses Blue with an identical (yet heterosexual) twin, Red, thus creating fertile ground for musings on and exploration of the pair's different sexualities. But, though readers will naturally expect some good zingers on nature versus nurture, O'Donnell delivers zip.
O'Donnell's setting up of the twin situation—a rare case in gay fiction but a common case in gay imaginations—and not making good use of it is a real frustration. There are bits about how Red's life will be easier because he is straight, but no examination of why Blue and Red have divergent sexualities to begin with.
Early in the book, Blue explains how he and Red got their nicknames: as infants, their mother told the twins apart by dressing them in different colors. He notes that "...whether the colors influenced our tempers or were chosen to match them, not even Mom could ever explain. Anyway, she didn't like conversations about psychology or motivation. She always suspected such talks would lead to one of us trying to get out of a household task."
Mark O'Donnell shares this avoidance of psychology and motivation with old Mrs. Monahan. Perhaps if we readers run along, mop the floors and don't forget to floss, he'll be convinced to fill his next novel with insights as good as his gags.
