Message of Love

A Novel

By: Jim Provenzano

Narrated by: Michael Wetherbee

Lambda Literary Award finalist - gay romance

In Jim Provenzano's sequel to the 2012 Lambda Literary Award-winner Every Time I Think of You, the love between two young men is put to a test. Reid Conniff and Everett Forrester have moved to Philadelphia, where college life brings them closer together.

But Everett, a recovering paraplegic, is pressured by his mother to transfer to the University of Pennsylvania, while Reid stays at Temple University. Their once long-distance love becomes a cross-town romance. A twist of floral fate finds them an apartment more like a home.

Between disability protests, impulsive road trips, and despite a few affairs, their relationship grows. But as the early 1980s continue, a spreading crisis approaches, coming into their lives with a strange intimacy, via that one mysterious Polaroid of Everett - the one that Reid never dared to ask about.

©2014 Jim Provenzano (P)2020 Jim Provenzano

Brilliantly written and performed

I truly loved this book. I have read the first novel in the series several years back in hardcopy. It was equally well written and filled with surprise and intrigue. I wanted to see how the experience might be different by listening to this book VS reading it. I had forgotten some of the story but it didn’t matter. It all came back fairly quickly. And Even if I hadn’t read the first ones it wouldn’t have mattered. Being a native Philadelphian and having lived there during this time I was impressed by the accuracy. I was really moved by how much of the city and the gay experience was captured of those years. I related to it on a personal level also being someone who had friends with HIV/AIDS (some who died in the 80s). I also related to having a boyfriend and being a new gay couple and what that felt like. We were living with a lot of fear but we also were really living the benefits of the previous generation who’d paced the way for us to be more out. I felt like I knew all of those people in the book. And I appreciated having that very challenging moment in our history captured so stunningly. I’ve listen to a lot of books on Audible and the narration with the books often varies. This actor was truly one of the best I had ever heard. He captured all of the nuances of each character with great depth. I always knew who was speaking and I appreciated his ability to switch from person to person flawlessly. I really loved when he would sing or add color to each of the scenes by varying his vocal texture or tempo.
I really appreciated the fact that the main character Reed was speaking about the disability of his partner from his perspective. I got a lot of insight into both of their worlds from this point of view. It helped me understand the parallels between disability rights and LGBTQ rights.

The book was warm, sexy and didn’t shy away from the deeper questions of identity and community and how we navigated the gay world in our 20s during the 1980s. Thank you for this thoughtful and provocative work.