Genre: Historical, YA, 1960’s
LGBTQ+ Category: Gay
Reviewer: Tony
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About The Book
Hollywood, the mid-1960s. President Kennedy has been assassinated, the country’s civil rights movement is in full swing, and teenager Nate Berrigan is a television sitcom star.
But Nate’s onscreen life looks nothing like the real thing, which stars abusive, addicted parents instead of swooning teenage girls. On top of that, Nate’s questioning his sexuality, and his boss is a demanding monster.
The pressure would get to anyone. Fortunately Nate has Tai Atua, his costar… and maybe the love of his life. As the boys slowly fall for each other, Nate tries to believe in the possibility of his own happiness. Tai could be his savior, pulling Nate away from the precarious knife-edge he’s balancing on.
Of course, he could also be his undoing. Because if anyone finds out about their relationship, Nate’s whole life will come crashing down around him. If that happened, Nate couldn’t live with himself….
The Review
Heartthrob is an interesting piece of period writing, set in the mid sixties around a television soap / comedy called Kerry! The supposed main character is Kerry Flanagan, loved by the viewing audience but not by anyone having to spend any offscreen time with him.
His television family includes Nate, playing Kerry’s son Brian, and Tai, playing Pele, son of the housekeeper. Both these guys are the real stars of the show. Nate is a quiet but driven teenager with parents who are in it for the money and not for him. Nate finds his onscreen family is more supportive than his real one, even taking Kerry into account.
Tai sees something adorable about Nate and wants to make him his. The problem is that Nate, while being a talented comic actor, has little experience of life outside his bedroom and by that I don’t mean anything inappropriate. He knows what he wants in terms of a career, but nothing else.
Tai comes over as very experienced in everything, including the sixties gay scene in California. He is good at BS, but he has a good heart and wants to give Nate everything he needs. If that includes Tai, he’ll be a very happy teen.
I did have a problem with how streetwise Tai seems. A little bit more innocence would have been good here. He does have some baggage of his own, in the form of his slightly older best friend / boyfriend / manipulative abuser.
The book charts Nate and Tai’s progress from the age of sixteen in 1963 to somewhat under eighteen at a guess, as time seems a little stretchy. There are three seasons of Kerry! In the can before the story goes somewhere very dark. It’s told in scenes rather than chapters, but chapters are what they are. The ‘1963 years’ are bracketed by 1998, for a good reason, but you won’t find out what that is here. No spoilers!
I liked Hearthrob but it took me a few scenes to get into it and by Scene 33 I was getting a little weary. Still, I felt well rewarded by the end. The period details felt right, and some of the other characters were a joy, Candy and Dana, to name the best. I felt the other two sons of Kerry’s character could have been named and maybe contributed a bit more.
The death of JFK and the Equal Rights Act of 1964 feature here, with Tai being the mouthpiece and poor ignorant Nate not sure what’s going on. Both characters grow over time and become more real by the scene. Gay rights are still to become an issue. Tai is ever hopeful that equal rights are going to be extended to black Americans and all peoples in between. Sadly some of the things he hoped for are still to be realised today – particularly in the case of the police’s treatment of black drivers.
I also have some concerns as to how some of the characters are treated, although that is mostly in terms of the society of the day. The author has got that right, sadly. Sader still is the fact a lot of those issues remain to blight lives.
This story is worth reading.
The Reviewer
Tony is an Englishman living amongst the Welsh and the Other Folk in the mountains of Wales. He lives with his partner of thirty-six years, four dogs, two ponies, various birds, and his bees. He is a retired lecturer and a writer of no renown but that doesn’t stop him enjoying what he used to think of as ‘sensible’ fantasy and sf. He’s surprised to find that if the story is well written and has likeable characters undergoing the trails of life, i.e. falling in love, falling out of love, having a bit of nooky (but not all the time), fending off foes, aliens and monsters, etc., he’ll be happy as a sandperson who has just offloaded a wagon of sand at the going market price. As long as there’s a story, he’s in. He aims to write fair and honest reviews. If he finds he is not the target reader he’ll move on.
