It Takes Two to Tango
“Grimsley excels in creating an atmosphere of emotional tension...”
Another historical novel with myriad life lessons on display is Jim Grimsley’s tour-de-force The Dove in the Belly. Grimsley has long been praised as one of the finest creators of Southern fiction and drama, and this novel has him at the height of his powers.
Ronny is a college student in 1970s Chapel Hill, NC. His mother has recently made it clear that she will no longer play a role in his life, and he’s been tutoring and working at a local newspaper to make ends meet. A strong mutual attraction leads him into a complicated romance with Ben, a football player and one of the students that Ronny tutors. What unfolds is a quintessential tale of the soaring highs and unfathomable lows of first love.
Grimsley excels in creating an atmosphere of emotional tension (both pleasant and unpleasant), which is on full display as Ben and Ronny try to reconcile their romance with the realities of their lives as individuals. This is a heart-achingly real portrayal of the lengths we go to when in love and how sometimes even the most noble and selfless devotion is not enough to make a relationship work. It is an astonishingly clear-eyed portrayal of relationship dynamics and how our individual character flaws and imperfections can create chaos for those we love.
The age of the characters, along with the emotional complexities explored, make this journey appropriate for a more mature reader (ages 15+), but this is the type of story where real magic can happen, and an experience with the written word will elicit emotions unlike anything they’ve experienced in a book before. There are valuable life lessons to be taken away here, but as with most matters of the heart, they are lessons we often must experience for ourselves to fully learn.