Timeless by Patric Michael
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I bought and read Timeless after chatting to Patric Michael in Bethwylde's Yahoo Group. I'd never heard of him or "Timeless" before, so I was curious to see what it would be like.

The story starts with what could, for some, be a Spoiler but which the author told me later he sees more as a "hook". We learn straight up that Nate and Andy kiss.

Given that the next few pages were devoted to showing that Andy is straight, I was flumoxed by why the author would start the story that way. Once I got past this reaction, I started to see "Timeless" for what it was, a tale of two men, one who had acknowledged his homosexuality from an early age and another who went to great pains to prove he was straight.

They have ups and downs in their professional lives, each has lovers of varying degrees of closeness, but all the time they circle around each other as if connected by a long piece of string.

Timeless is a tale of friendship as much as it a tale of love. Andy and Nate might not have been lovers during all those years before they kissed, but they were still there for each other when it counted.

"Played. Was that it? Was I just tired of the casual dates that punctuated my social life to that point? I wasn't sure, but it felt right. I suddenly wished for Andy. Longed for him with an intensity that made my stomach cramp from the sheer weight of it. Andy would tease me, make me laugh, keep me from thinking. I wanted to wrap his vitality around me like a blanket and simply hide beneath the cover of our long friendship.", [Patric Michael, Timeless:]

It was a story about real life, real characters. If I was Nate, I'm not sure I could have excused Andy when he finally came out of the closet after wasting so many years when he'd been seemingly hopelessly in love with him, but obviously life's like that and there's a lesson to be learned there.

I also found it hard to believe that Nate wouldn't have sensed Andy's homosexuality, so I contacted the author and posed some of these questions to see just how realistic these scenarios would be, and he assured me he'd seen or experienced similar. Apparently guys are very capable of hiding their nature away if they fear recognition.

In which case, this story steps up above the rank of the usual m/m romance and actually becomes a study of human relationships. Of how people's needs and urges change over time. How difficult it was and possibly still is for some men to acknowledge their sexuality.

These concepts aren't belaboured, on the contrary, I found their inclusion made "Timeless" different from the majority of the m/m romances on the market and they made up for the little niggle I had with the opening spoiler.

"Timeless" is worth reading for the insight it gives into male bonding and male relationships as well as for the sweet romance it portrays.

Postscript: Now that more people have read this book, I'm interested to see that some of the younger males who read it, didn't like it because (I suspect) they didn't agree with the lifestyle choices the characters made. One reviewer going so far as to express dissatisfaction with slutty behavior. Now, note by "lifestyle" I'm not referring to whether or not they are gay, but the type of life they lead. I feel this behavior reflects the era of the man writing the story. When he "came out" / grew up, homosexuality was not as accepted as it was today.

This tended to create a different attitude to sex and monogamy. The latter was unheard of between gay males, or if couples did exist, they were the exception rather than the rule. Men, therefore, being treated as outcasts often went that one step further, pushing the boundaries and being hedonistic, because you were damned if you did and and damned if you didn't.

Hopefully, gay men when reading books by writers who lived in the generations before theirs, won't judge behavior on today's standards. Instead they should take the opportunity to learn what it was like and be thankful that times have changed.

So, while the behavior of the protagonists may not be "Timeless" their hopes and desires are.

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