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A Novel
by Denne Michele Norris
Book Reviewed by:In this heart-wrenching debut novel, a young Black gay man reckoning with the death of his father must confront his painful past—and his deepest desires around gender, love, and sex.
"I got tired of running away from what I should've been running toward."
The venerated Reverend Doctor John Freeman did not raise his son, Davis, to be touched by any man, let alone a white man. He did not raise his son to whisper that man's name with tenderness.
But on the eve of his wedding, all Davis can think about is how beautiful he wants to look when he meets his beloved Everett at the altar. Never mind that his mother, who died decades before, and his father, whose anger drove Davis to flee their home in Ohio for a freer life in New York City, won't be there to walk him down the aisle. All Davis needs to be happy in this life is Everett, his new family, and his burgeoning career as an award-winning violist.
When Davis learns during the wedding reception that his father has died in a terrible car accident, years of childhood trauma and unspoken emotion resurface. Davis must revisit everything that went wrong between them, his fledgling marriage and irresistible self-confidence spiraling into a pit of despair.
In resplendent prose, Denne Michele Norris's When the Harvest Comes fearlessly reveals the pain of inheritance and the heroic power of love, reminding us that, in the end, we are more than the men who came before us.
Denne Michele Norris's debut novel is something to behold. Its parts are just as lovely as their sum. While the wedding is a vehicle to build drama about a relationship and a marriage that begins with the best intentions — being in love, having a person — Norris also digs into the forbidden parts of childhood with parents who lack understanding or empathy. Caribbean novelist Jamaica Kincaid once suggested that it was her duty as a writer to make everyone a little less happy. Kincaid's stories are about the spectrum of life's difficulties. This is the quiet theme here in Norris's novel. Marriages between men may be mired in challenges primarily because of the damage from years earlier, the pain that both fathers and society inflict..continued
Full Review
(974 words)
(Reviewed by Valerie Morales).
The night terrors began when Davis Freeman was five years old, after his mother died of lymphoma. While he lay in the dark, his body felt like straw. His screams, catastrophic and haunting, echoed throughout the house, prompting Davis's father, the Reverend, to sprint into his room to comfort him. To tell him it was okay. To dry his tears and pin his body in place even if that meant slapping him to erase the terrors.
Davis cuddled into his father's chest and eventually his normal breathing pattern steadied his pulse. He was relaxed, though fatigued and emotionally drained. All would have been well if not for how Davis, in an impulsive moment, kissed his father's lips.
Davis and his father are fictional characters in Denne Michele ...
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Alejandro Varela, author of The People Who Report More Stress
A tale of redemption and transformation in the face of great obstacles, When the Harvest Comes is a book for anyone who's ever believed they didn't deserve happiness, for anyone whose worldview has been shaped by marginalization, for anyone who's accomplished more than was expected of them... . Moving and uplifting.
