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by J.V. Petretta
Reviewed by Mel Keegan
Here’s an interesting concept that I don’t think has been done too often before – certainly it’s the first time I’ve come across it. An Impossible Dream Story is fiction – written in the form of autobiography. The format works well, sometimes very well, and there are many scenes where the reader identifies powerfully with the central character of Vincent “Vinnie” Pirelli. Author J.V. Petretta takes us on a journey back to 1950s and 1960s America, and for US readers of mature age, I can imagine how nostalgic this journey will be. Being a foreigner (Aussie), much of the nuance is lost to me, but I picked up on enough to know that Petretta’s portrait of the country and the times will strike a major chord with people who were there at the time. Early in the work, it’s the story of a kid growing up in extremely impoverished circumstances, in a dysfunctional family with an abusive father; and there are many scenes which, being told with insight and pathos, are quite painful to read. Young Vinnie is also growing up bisexual in an era when this was highly problematical; but the difficulties of his youthful sexuality appear to be overcome when his heterosexual side emerges during military service and he marries the lovely, fragile and remarkable Lek, the Thai girl who is one of the book’s major players. It’s marriage, kids, traditional family for Vinnie, with all the struggles that accompany the good times. Yet it’s entirely predictable that it would end in tears … actually, in an Indiana courtroom, with the kind of “justice” meted out that makes one blink and speculate about legality! … because eventually, inevitably, Vinnie found himself living the double life of a gay man married to a lovely woman. As often can happen, with middle age it was time for his gay side to assert at last. After 20 years of marriage, in the wake of the separation and divorce, he came out gay … in NYC, amid a flurry of promiscuity, at risk of his life, culminating in a too-rough scene that was perilously close to rape. The AIDS era was at full throttle. Fun and games aside, being gay was damn’ dangerous, especially in places like New York. Almost inevitably, after that rough scene in a rough club, Vinnie tested positive to HIV … no surprise. And after a lifetime of challenges, his greatest challenge began: the personal battle to survive HIV and rediscover his real self, a man who has been lost in a down-spiraling lifestyle leading to self-annihilation. There are many loves in his turbulent, roller-coaster life – but it’s love for a dynasty of bicycles that is one of the major forces reshaping his life, propelling him eventually into the “impossible dream” of a cross-America ride to benefit AIDS. And herein, at last, is the triumph of his personality after a lifetime of catastrophe, mistakes and appalling bad luck. The book is written in a highly personal style; it’s often reading like a letter or journal entry rather than the traditional autobiographies one is accustomed to – most of which are ghost written according to the industry’s style book, and tend to sound very much alike. J.V. Petretta cuts a different route, in-your-face and often strikingly “real.” The firsthand memoir of a man turning HIV-positive are chilling. It was 1993, and the workplace was homophobic. The difficulties, physical and psychological, being experienced by a guy who could only admit he’d been running on the wild side, are fearsome. The pacing at times can be slow; you’ll need to develop an affinity for the characters to persevere, especially if you’re a GLBT reader and find yourself in the midst of a lengthy section of straight domestic drama; but have patience. The steady progression of life feels very genuine, and be assured, Vinnie is hurtling down a road that leads perilously close to complete self-destruction. The book is somewhat “lumpy” in places. Some sections are skimmed over that would have been extremely compelling if they had been fully developed … such as the years of Vinnie’s overseas military service in the Vietnam years. These events were of more interest to me than the childhood years; I could have wished for much more about the earth-shattering happenings at war to balance the painful domestic dramas revolving around poverty, privation and the abuse of a parent/ husband who seems to have had some loose screws. The structure of the book gave me problems that actually caused me to set it aside for a couple of months and come back to it afresh. Early in the work, Vinnie tells us how he worshipped his dad; but almost at once he reveals how he was systematically beaten by the same man, who also battered his mother. This didn’t “gel” for me. Also, as a young teen he was brutally sexually assaulted. For the majority of victims this is a psychological trauma that will shape (or warp) subsequent years and even fundamentally alter their personality. In the unfolding of the story, literally nothing is made of this event at the time. Later, we learn that Vinnie actually blocked the memory, which surfaced 25 years later during the violent encounter where he contracted HIV. But the two events are over 100 pages apart, and I found it very difficult to resolve the apparent glossing-over of the criminal act committed against one who was little more than a child. Lastly, the book lost me completely (and still does) at the point where Vinnie – who was himself a battered child – took off his belt and whaled into his very young adopted son over something he thought the little boy had said. I’ll be candid: I can’t make any sense of this episode, and don’t like what it shows us of Vinnie’s character. Bottom line: no decent person beats a kid for any reason whatsoever. But if you don’t get past this, you won’t finish the book. As I said, I set it aside for months. I still make no sense of the scene where he beat his son, especially as Vinnie is, throughout, inclined to be so religious. Again, this didn’t “gel” for me, leaving me with a persistent ambivalence regarding the inner nature of the autobiographer. So, the book does have flaws which you’ll either get past – or not. Coming back to it when I was a little more distanced from the problems I perceived, I actually skipped ahead to the part where Vinnie’s story all starts to fit together like the jigsaw puzzle it is, and worked my way back – and I’m glad I did, because the real meat and potatoes of the book … a man’s struggle to rediscover himself after he’s made a complete hash of virtually every part of his life! … doesn’t get into gear till late in the second third of the story. Vinnie’s account of a homophobic workplace and the HIV treatment make for sobering reading. This is not a pleasant read; but it is a poignant and evocative one: there, but for the grace of the gods, goes any one of us. Out of the midst of his sickness came the decision to train for cross-America bike ride to raise AIDS awareness – shades of Lance Armstrong coming back from cancer and riding to raise awareness of cancer. Here is the book’s pivot point: the moment when Vinnie (and the reader) begin to head back upward from the bottom of the pit he dug himself into. Against the odds, Petretta does wrangle a happy ending, though to me the “full circle” romance, where an old flame from Vinnie’s military service days reappears in the nick of time, just a handful of pages before the end, felt contrived, rather forced in order to make the happy ending work. However, it’s been such a long, hard and often miserable road that one can hardly begrudge Vinnie Pirelli a shot at happiness. An Impossible Dream Story is a compelling work, well written, with just a few minor faults of style that would have been polished out by a professional edit; and the later sections describing the ride are indeed inspirational (by which I don’t mean the religious references, which are, I confess, wasted on me). At times during the roadtrip section I was reminded somewhat of The World’s Fastest Indian; at other times, there’s a docudrama flavor to the narrative concerning the marathon ride that works well. For me, the book does have several problems and it can be a tough read, but I do recommend it, because it’s an eye-opener in so many ways. Readers who enjoy a challenge, or something different, might easily warm to this one. So I’ll say “three and a half stars, plus a recommendation!” Paperback: 260 pages |
