John of John by Douglas Stuart

This is a cautionary tale of what not to do as a parent. The prodigal son, 22-year-old gay Harris islander John-Calum Macleod, or Cal, returns to his childhood home, where his father is not just unhappy to see him, but detests everything about him, all the while expecting him to stay and take over the croft. There are undercurrents of domineering ownership that are not just distasteful, they are suffocating even for a straight man, much less a closeted gay one. Set within a tight-knit Free Presbyterian community of farmers, weavers and fishers in what appears to be the 1990s, John of John tells the story of Cal’s uneasy homecoming. It’s an ardent exploration of the half-lives of queer men condemned to love, pine and suffer in silence. Wearied by his ultraconservative environment, where connection feels out of reach, Cal takes a fancy to his dad’s sole friend, confirmed bachelor Innes MacInnes. Cal is struck by Innes’s “gentleness, his benevolence--but it cannot be, because his father and Innes have been lovers since they were teens. The irony in this intimate yet epic tale, with equal parts drama, familial fracture, love and inquiry into various forms of loneliness: the loneliness that can reside between fathers and sons, between lovers, between man and God, and between a small place and the big world. Do not miss this, it is alarming and telling.