Author: Robert C Reinhart Publisher: Alyson "She was a down pillow of a woman." So begins a remarkably evocative description of Meg, the aunt of the dead character in "After Norman: Eulogy, Memory, Legacy". It's one of a number of touchingly disturbing yet beautiful stories collected here, all of them somehow relating to the title. Reinhard, author and playwright, knows his subjects well and what's more, inhabits them to tell their story. Thus in "The Boys of Mérida", we actually feel joy when a possibly-pedophilic hairdresser finds adult, consenting love. When an HIV patient's partner abandons him, the reader is drawn in again by the conviction of the portrayals until we too want to see what type of person this survivor will become. And so more often than not we side with the characters, whether they be guys getting it off with Goofy in the Magic Kingdom, or Jim, whose "whang was the stuff of classic Greek comedy." That ability to create characters of whom we want more, for whom we desire particular outcomes is a rare and noble one, especially when said characters are wallowing in their own filth. Reinhart then has crafted something special, something all together too-human, and all about the consequences of sex.
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Title: The Consequence of Sex
