THE GUNCLE (Book Review)

By Steven Rowley

 

(G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2021)

 

So often, comedy goes unrewarded. I’m in hysterics whenever I watch “Best in Show,” a mockumentary about dog shows, starring Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge, Jane Lynch, Parker Posey and Christopher Guest. Oscar nominations? Zero. I worry the neighbors will make a noise complaint to the police as I roar with laughter watching Steve Martin and John Candy play off one another in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.” No Oscar love. The Academy honored Martin with an honorary Oscar in 2013 despite never nominating him for any of his film roles. I know the common stance: comedies aren’t that kind of movie. As if being funny is effortless, as if we should shrug and take it for granted.

 

When I say that Steven Rowley’s The Guncle is a fun read, I mean that with the highest regard. He is supremely talented in writing humor. The quips and the antics hold strong throughout the book’s more than three hundred pages.

 

The Guncle is the story of Patrick O’Hara, a forty-three-year-old gay actor, very out and very out of touch with the career that’s allowed him to live comfortably and carefree in Palm Springs. Patrick won a Golden Globe as a sitcom star, but the show finished its run and he, well, ran. That was four years ago, an eternity in Hollywood. Something has kept him away, from his career and life.

 

When his best friend, Sara, dies after a battle with cancer (this is not a spoiler; we know this by the third page of the first chapter), Patrick flies to Connecticut for the funeral and to be with brother, Greg, who happens to have married Sara. I’ll admit that all this connectedness struck me as too convenient for the plot. Yeah, right. I went with it because, contrived or not, it sets things up beautifully.

 

Greg requests that his brother take care of the two kids, Maisie and Grant (ages nine and six), for the three months of summer while Greg gets his act together. Patrick, Mr. No Responsibilities, balks. How the hell would he fit his niece and nephew into his cocktail-abundant Palm Springs life in a plush home never intended for kids as guests much less as inhabitants? 

 

As we see from the outset, Patrick has no business being a stand-in parent:

 

He takes the kids to brunch—horrified that that’s not a thing for them—and breaks it to them that he isn’t going to take them. (Who does that?!) Young Grant asks, “Why do you live in Palm Spwings? Why do you live tho far away?” Patrick explains: “[I]f you must know, I’m young in Palm Springs. Okay? This is the sad truth for gay men. Forty is ancient in Los Angeles, middle-aged in San Francisco, but young in Palm Springs. That’s why I live there.”

 

“You’re forty-three!” Maisie bellowed.

“Who are you, the DMV? Lower your voice.”

 

“That’s almost fifty!” Grant’s eyes grew big.

 

Patrick took the jab, then closed his eyes and bit his lower lip, the observation just shy of a hate crime. Do not punch a child, do not punch a child. “Can we please focus?”

 

Of course, no becomes yes, perhaps for the wrong reasons. I’ll just say that sibling rivalries can make people do crazy things. 

 

Patrick’s way of parenting is, no surprise, unorthodox. He isn’t used to being around children and he does little to edit himself, still drinking, still swearing, still inserting snappy references which fly over the children’s heads. I’m not going to look up the specific quotes, but Maisie often asks, “What are you even saying?” while Grant says, “You talk funny.” Indeed, Patrick drops so many movie references and Oscar Wilde quotes that adults (characters and readers, including myself) don’t always know what Patrick is saying.

 

It’s my understanding that, being a guncle, you get to be the fun relative in the lives of nieces and nephews. Obviously, Patrick’s got that in spades. It’s an interesting premise when he has to shift (somewhat, at least) from guncling to parenting. There are times when the humor seems inappropriate, even for Patrick O’Hara. As Rowley adds deeper layers to the story, his main character resists and almost sabotages his writer. Some of the potency doesn’t quite land. In some ways, that’s all right. A story involving how to cope with the death of your best friend—not to mention the children’s mother—can get melodramatic. No risk of that here. Still, there are grays, something in between, a sweet spot, which The Guncle orbits around. 

 

I’ve known many a Patrick O’Hara when I’ve been more connected to gay circles. They may seem like caricatures—old, campy queens, as they were once known—but they are still around and, in small doses, at least, they are a riot. Often, I’ve sat at coffee or stood in a bar around one or two Patricks and been in awe, not wanting to be them, but at least wishing I could keep up. How do they stay so ON all the time? 

 

I’m surprised that the main character didn’t wear on me after the first hundred pages. Steven Rowley is just that skilled as a writer to make a would-be shell of a character something more and someone whose every comment and action entertains. 

How good is the writing? It’s so jam-packed with humor, I look forward to a second read to laugh and smile again at certain passages and to discover funny bits I glossed over the first time. When Rowley writes almost as a throwaway sentence, “Guests smiled and waved as Patrick weaved through the crowd, many hugged him tight and declared some version of Where have you been?, each putting their emphasis on a different word in the question,” I had to stop, channel my inner Chandler Bing and pose the question with different emphases as well. Again, a FUN read. 

 

As well, Rowley has done the impossible for me personally. I lived in Los Angeles for five years and friends often went to Palm Springs for weekend getaways and the annual White Party. The idea of going along was always a firm HELL, NO for me: too hot, too gay. People would tell me, “But they have misters everywhere,” meaning little showerheads or something that spritz water on you to keep you cool and refreshed. (Or did “misters” really refer to older men?!) I’ve had several friends move to Palm Springs and privately mourned. Looks like I’ll never see him again. Why didn’t he move to Pittsburgh? Rowley regularly mentions the heat in his setting (where he, incidentally, lives), but the descriptions and the places named had me Googling—Ooh, The Parker hotel!—and wondering which month would be best for a heat-intolerant gay like me to finally pay a visit. 

 

Imagine that…a fun read that may reconnect me with old friends. That’s quite something to pull off, Steven Rowley. Bravo!