I Am Not Raymond Wallace

Product Information

being covertly blackmailed by an estranged wife, and that he himself is to assist the straight-laced Doty on an article about the ‘explosion of overt homosexuality’ in the city. The Raymond's controlling mother arrives to spend a couple of days with him at the end of his internship and accompany him home. But then he does not have the courage to take all the risks he would need to take, to live out his romance. Raymond Wallace, a recent graduate of Cambridge of age 21, arrives in NYC in the summer of 1963 for a 3-month internship with the NY Times.

Joey is the opposite, accepted by a father who doesn’t understand his son’s inclinations but adores him regardless, welcoming Raymond into his family. The decision he makes will ricochet destructively through lives and decades until—in another time, another city; in Paris, 2003—Raymond’s son Joe finally meets Joey. If you’re into romance stories, and believe in the power of love and how much it can change a person, I’d recommend you this book. He’s told to go undercover, tasked with providing Doty with salacious details for the piece, something which both unsettles and excites him as he wrestles with a sexuality which has been kept firmly buttoned up. When Raymond takes this 'job' and is told that he needs more 'appropriate for the times' clothing to fit in to the group that he is going to be doing undercover writing for; he has no idea that he is going to fall in love whole heartedly for the first time in his life with the young man at the clothier.I Am not Raymond Wallace is a multi-stranded story of queer redemption spanning multiple generations, told with precision-tooled prose, sharply-imagined settings and compassionately-observed characterisation. In part two which is set in 2003 and starts two thirds of the way through the book - some of the characters use 'letters' to communicate with other people to continue the narrative. It reminds us how bad things were for LGBT+ people within living memory - and indeed continue to be in many countries around the world. The sex scenes are quite frank, so I couldn't give it to my 88 year old mother, but if you're OK with those, I would recommend it and I look forward to any future novels.

Although I needed to take a break during the Paris visit, and I wiped tears from my eyes more than once, it was a beautiful story crafted artfully. This history cannot be forgotten by younger generations, just like forgetting that abortion was once illegal and resulted in many tragedies (oh yeah, that's changed hasn't it).The story is highly evocative of Manhattan in 1963 at the start and written in a traditional novel style. It is against this recontextualization that Sam Kenyon has written his debut novel, I am not Raymond Wallace, a story about closeted cis men set largely in 1963. There are and were scenes of gay sex portrayed quite vividly, but this should be a story that anyone and not only gay men or boys, should read if you know what true and real love and love for LIFE is all about.

So begins a relationship which sees Raymond becoming part of a family very different from his own at home in Britain. What continues for the rest of the 300 plus pages of this debut novel has got to be the most beautifully written account of a 21 year old mans 'Sexual Awakenings' as I have ever read. The decision he makes will ricochet destructively through lives and decades until―in another time, another city; in Paris, 2003―Raymond’s son Joe finally meets Joey. As his bursary draws to a close, he’s faced with a choice which we know from the start he will regret.

Kenyon’s novel explores themes of sexual identity and intolerance with a tender compassion through two very different characters. He serendipitously gets into a bar that requires a secret knock and meets Joey and feels a very strong attachment. The rest of his life will be spent yearning for the love he found in New York, later writing about the pain of loss and repression. When he stumbles upon a bar which fits Doty’s bill, Raymond meets Joey, handsome, self-assured and comfortable with himself, who takes him home. He does a good job of evoking those times, the shame, the fear and paranoia, the hiding and recognition codes.