Seán Hewitt's tender first novel, Open, Heaven, is a queer coming-of-age story that questions the assumed evanescence of teenage infatuation.
In 2022, James Legh, a 30-something librarian separated from his husband, returns to his hometown of Thornmere in the North of England to view a farmhouse for sale. He still thinks about his first love, Luke, whom he met on this farm 20 years ago. James has no intention of buying the property; instead, he has come to try to recapture the past and to commune with those he's lost as he also revisits the local churchyard and pub.
The remainder of the novel unfolds between autumn 2002 and the following summer: a pivotal year for 16-year-old James. One morning, he meets 17-year-old Luke, who is staying with his uncle, the farmer Hyde, while his father is in prison. The boys become friends through farm chores, playing video games, and attending a rugby club dance. But James is uneasy about Luke's form of masculinity. He knows he mustn't read too much into Luke's casual physical contact with him. Yet when Luke proposes a secret camping trip, James lets his romantic fantasies run wild.
Whether describing teenage emotions or the countryside across the seasons, Hewitt (All Down Darkness Wide) impresses with his lyrical prose. The first-person narrative is redolent of autofiction, alternating between raw and coy. The old-fashioned canalside village setting--Thornmere is described as "nowhere's junction and no one's destination"--contributes to an aura of timelessness. This elegiac novel, ideal for readers of Andrés N. Ordorica's How We Named the Stars, posits that first love--even if unrequited--persists. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader and blogger at Bookish Beck