Hi all!  Sid Love asked me if I wanted to do a regular monthly feature, and of course I said “Yes!” in a heartbeat!  I’ll be here every 3^rd of the month and Sid has PROMISED to remind me, because me and the space/time continuum have only a shaky relationship at best.  But I’m thrilled to be here and thrilled to be given permission to natter away.  I won’t always have a release out to chat about, but since I do have one—Behind the Curtain, which will be out on January 6^th, I figured I’d talk about it here!

Why Behind the Curtain 

By
Amy Lane

Junior College was a long time ago for me, but I still remember it very clearly.  There is something about those transitional times in our lives that just stick, you know?  It’s like we as beings become more expansive, more flexible, and as our consciousness stretches, it catches all the little bits and pieces of our experience more firmly inside.

I played flute in the band, either worked tech or had a part in every play, took a full course work and worked full time at McDonalds because sleep was for the weak, life was to be lived, and I didn’t have a boyfriend yet so who needed time for sex or meaningful emotional communication?

Of course, when you do get that first boyfriend/girlfriend, suddenly sex and meaningful emotional communication becomes more important, and hey!  So does making sure you survive to make all those plans you make with that special person come to fruition. Suddenly those friends—those all important, I’d-die-for-you-you’re-my-family friends—become a little less vital.  Suddenly, that tiny family of two becomes so much larger than you ever suspected it would.

Falling in love with your soulmate when you are young causes that whole growing up thing to happen so much more quickly than it might otherwise.  Falling in love means making plans for a future.  Making plans for the future means imagining a time when you are out of school and you’re world has changed.  This alone gives you a boot out the door of childhood—sometimes ahead of your friends.

This is what happens to Dawson in Behind the Curtain.  He meets the one—the one guy he can love forever and ever and ever.  But Jared has been around a very rough block more than once, and that’s a problem.  Dawson is still back in childhood, where he can be king of the junior college and his best friend is all he’ll ever need.  Jared doesn’t need the king of junior college.  Jared needs a grown-up, because his damage is this close to being to great to repair.

Watching Dawson grow up in this book was pretty awesome for me.  My Mate and I grew up together, and I was lucky in that way.  In addition to exploring that fun, amazing, frenetic excitement of right before your real life is supposed to begin, this book also asks the question, “What if the love of your life grew up before you did—and it sucked.”  Dawson suddenly finds himself in charge of Jared’s re-education about how life can be magical again, and he has to ask himself if he’s up for the job.

I loved this story.  For one thing, the angst snuck up on me because I was writing from Dawson’s point of view.  I realized that Jared had this entirely separate life that Dawson couldn’t see, and when Dawson realizes it, that’s a big grown-up-sized whack upside the head.

But for another, Dawson’s world is magical.  His life is literally right in front of him, hanging like ripe fruit, and Dawson (and his buddy Benji) are fully capable of enjoying that fruit right off the vine and asking for another helping.  They are fun, amazing young people—and after eighteen years teaching, and a few years parenting emerging adults, I’ve come to appreciate how much possibility young people have, and how much more they do with their possibility than even I did when I was their age.  Their lives are up in the air, in transition, and every experience is ready to be caught up in their energy and lived.  And Jared opens himself up to that energy, and he gets to live that time in his life again, but this time live it better.

I love that idea.

So I may not get to go back and be a junior college student and meet my Mate and embark on the rest of my life again.  But I give to you Dawson and Jared—who do.  I hope you enjoy living this time through them as much as I did.  I honestly think they did it a wee bit better.