You Can Say You Knew Me When

This book was a wonderful read. Excellent pacing between the past and present. Excellent character development of both major and minor characters. I could see these people, as well as the time in which they were inhabiting or the time they were remembering. Jamie, as the protagonist, is flawed and searching, and follows his own path to the answers he needs to find. He kept me interested in what he was going to do next and why. I loved this book as much as "The World of Normal Boys." I will read everything this author brings to print.

This tale of a wandering, undisciplined, but basically good-hearted, gay man is a refreshingly well-written yarn set mostly in San Francisco. Jamie Garner finds his rather aimless life taking a new direction after his father's funeral. He discovers an engrossing set of old letters and photos that places his late father--a stolid, disagreeable man--center stage in the 1950s beatnik era. While juggling the challenges of his fairly unsuccessful writing/radio producing career, his love of smoking pot, and handling his new boyfriend, Woody, Jamie begins to trace the people and environment of his father's past. The journey works on two levels, uncovering secrets of his father's happier, wilder days, and putting Jamie himself in a position to deal with his own shortcomings in life and to try a new approach to achieving goals. It's a book that is hard to summarize because the story is compelling, yet the plot springs entirely from the main character. At times Jamie seems helpless and self-deluded, at others, clear-headed and ambitious. He always seems authentic, however. Jamie is very real, and thankfully breaks out of any stereotype. When I first read a summary of the book--hearing of the themes of San Francisco, boyfriend troubles, not-getting-along-with-father-who-just-died--I feared this book would walk the treadmill that is already so well-worn. But it does not, surprising the reader with a freshness and vibrancy that makes every word worth it. Karl Soehnlein has clearly established a place for himself among literary, contemporary gay male authors who write about gay themes, such as David Leavitt, Paul Russell Elliott, Peter Cameron, and others, while imbuing his work with a bit more lightheartedness and intrigue. It's not too lofty to say that Karl Soehnlein will one day soon join the authors at the top of that niche, people like Michael Cunningham, Edmund White, and even Christopher Isherwood.

KM Soehnlein follows up THE WORLD OF NORMAL BOYS with an even better book, a novel of mighty formal invention and daring. He takes a task of great difficulty and makes it seem as easy as a game of cats cradle. He must juggle two separate plots occuring 40 years apart, and make both of them interesting, and interrelate them both, while bringing to life two very different periods of San Francisco history, both of them--from today's viewpoint--almost unimaginable today; true period pieces. In one of them Teddy Garner lived, learned and moved, a young man from the provinces who, drawn to San Francisco by the Beat hubbub of Kerouac and Ginsberg, struggles through a difficult bohemian life there, trying to be a painter, trying to resist the pressure of cold war totalization. How do you stay authentic in any era? Why does one even bother? The other historical period, equally far out of reach, is the San Francisco of just a few years ago during the dot.com boom, when the saying was, if you can't make money out of the Internet, you're an idiot. Teddy's son, Jamie, lives in this world, a contrarian. He's a gay radio producer who, after attending his father's funeral back home in Greenlawn New Jersey, begins to suspect that his father's San Francisco sojourn might have included some bandying with same sex relationships. Soehnlein is great at taking "stock characters" and removing the stock from them, not merely by the cute Hollywood trick of giving everyone kooky traits, but by showing them in action, watching them with a lover's eye until they reveal themselves. Soehnlein's also a supremely sexy writer, so good with the body he allows us to follow him anywhere. When Jamie decides to have sex with a withered up old pensioner, whose body seems like it's flying apart in the throes of orgasm, you become aware of the vehemence with which most modern novels avert their eyes from the sex lives of seniors. In a Tenderloin bar Jamie goes down on a homeless man with the deliberate lust and tenderness of a Samuel R. Delany. And finally Jamie's voyage of discovery leads to Jed, the 19 year old beauty who's a drugged up mess, a la Kerouac, half angel, half ruin, and their sex is genuinely arousing, even for a straight boy. There are a few distractions. You have to swallow one enormous plot point, that tracking down his father's past would exercise Jamie enough to nearly ruin his life to find out more. But this "obsession" is a standard conceit, something we think we all of us have, and Soehnlein almost makes it natural. One late-in-the-story hookup is ponderously improbable, and doesn't gain plausibility even with the author's determination to make it work. On another note, you get the feeling the author has been taught that every sentence has to "be alive" so he lands in some awkward webs of subtitution, such as "I quickly layered clothes over my unwashed skin." LOL, a Rossellini queen would know that the Bergman-Rossellini affair was cold ashes sev

You Can Say You Knew Me When is author K.M. Soehnlein's second novel, following his well-received The World of Normal Boys. His second offering is a very grown-up story. There is considerable recreational drug use as well as unprotected sex. It's also well-told and beautifully written. Even though for much of the book I found myself wanting to slap some sense into Jamie, I couldn't help relating to him and recognizing bits of myself in him. I found myself rooting for him to get himself together. He's a very three-dimensional, realistic protagonist. Soehnlein has proven himself a versatile and talented author. You Can Say You Knew Me When is a powerful story of self-destruction and obsession -- and the redemptive power of love and acceptance. By the time you turn the last page, you'll feel as if you know these people intimately, and you'll be glad you met them.

With his first novel, "The World of Normal Boys," Soehnlein presented us with a riveting coming-out/coming-of-age story, with excruciatingly realistic characters and smooth plot development that drew you in and made you laugh and cry and cheer along with the protagonist. Indeed, I so wanted Jamie of "You Can Say You Knew Me When" to BE Robin from "Normal Boys" I had to stop and remind myself that he wasn't. Soehnlein's characterizations are still well-done, and he delves into more adventurous territory with this sophomore effort. The theme of self-discovery is present again here, with Soehnlein's Jamie Garner searching for answers about his father's mysterious time in 1960's San Francisco. The journey reveals more and more about his father, and ultimately, about himself. Jamie doesn't always like his father, and we, in turn don't always like Jamie. Regardless, Soehnlein weaves a scenario that pulls us along, making us want to find out the answers along with Jamie, even if we question his motives and actions. Soehnlein's characters tug and nag at our own personal characters, helping us understand what compels Jamie to continue his search, even to his detriment. As he did in "Normal Boys," Soehnlein shows us his mastery of creating sexual tension, but in "You Knew Me When" his very adult characters demonstrate the power of both emotional and unemotional sex. Strong characters, an intriguing storyline and a complex emotional structure make for an excellent read. I hope Soehnlein keeps up the good work.