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A review by readwithrichard
The Lookback Window by Kyle Dillon Hertz
5.0
An advance reader copy of the book was provided to me by NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
*TW - discussion of sexual abuse/drug use*
4 1/2 stars rounded up to 5
THE LOOKBACK WINDOW is a propulsive, well-written, and deeply moving debut novel by Kyle Dillon Hertz, chronicling a period of recovery and introspection during the time when the Child Victims Act expanded the statute of limitations to allow the pursuit of cases of child sexual abuse beyond the previous time limit.
The novel's protagonist, Dylan, is on the precipice of marrying his longtime boyfriend, Moans, a steady presence in his life who has been a sort of rock for him as they have navigated their own separate traumas parallelly through their shared life/lives. When Dylan was younger, he was repeatedly drugged and pimped out by an older man, raped and abused and photographed/recorded in the process. Now, nearly ten years later, he continues to struggle with the aftermath of what happened to him. When the Child Victims Act and its one-year ticking time clock to file a case (the "lookback window" of the novel's title) enters into the equation, it shakes up Dylan's life and sends him on a dangerous journey in search of justice and a way forward for himself that can allow him to live with and beyond the shadow of his past.
Hertz's novel is compulsively readable - as each chapter concluded, I kept wanting to read on, feeling at turns anxious, unsteady, hopeful, infuriated along with the protagonist in his search of some semblance of peace and justice. Everything Dylan goes through in the novel feels incredibly "real" and palpable, even the most horrendous moments recounted from his past. Readers should be forewarned that this novel deals with some very dark, disturbing, and visceral events involving sexual abuse and drug use especially, and those events are rendered with raw and descriptive language. As a reader, I appreciated that Hertz didn't pull punches, and that he used the power of his writing as a tool to bring a reader into both the dark/disturbing and hopeful aspects of his protagonist's life, to consider both the effects of trauma on survivors of abuse but also the flaws of our judicial system in seeking comeuppance for past wrongs.
I think this is a particularly important novel in the contemporary queer literary canon for its frank depiction of abuse. In a literary landscape where so many queer novels are dealing with coming-out, romance, marriage, and only occasionally messy or darker themes and storylines, I think we need more novels like THE LOOKBACK WINDOW.
I'm giving this novel 5 stars, rounded up from 4 1/2, because in the early chapters of the novel, when Dylan and Moans are visiting a clothing-optional resort in Fort Lauderdale, while I understood that these scenes were introducing the concept of the Child Victims Act and Dylan's reaction to it within the framework of the novel, I wasn't hooked and fully along for the ride of the novel until they had returned from their trip and the reader was pulled more into Dylan's day-to-day life. I wished for more of a knockout start to the story - but once I was grabbed by the book, there was no "lookback."
*TW - discussion of sexual abuse/drug use*
4 1/2 stars rounded up to 5
THE LOOKBACK WINDOW is a propulsive, well-written, and deeply moving debut novel by Kyle Dillon Hertz, chronicling a period of recovery and introspection during the time when the Child Victims Act expanded the statute of limitations to allow the pursuit of cases of child sexual abuse beyond the previous time limit.
The novel's protagonist, Dylan, is on the precipice of marrying his longtime boyfriend, Moans, a steady presence in his life who has been a sort of rock for him as they have navigated their own separate traumas parallelly through their shared life/lives. When Dylan was younger, he was repeatedly drugged and pimped out by an older man, raped and abused and photographed/recorded in the process. Now, nearly ten years later, he continues to struggle with the aftermath of what happened to him. When the Child Victims Act and its one-year ticking time clock to file a case (the "lookback window" of the novel's title) enters into the equation, it shakes up Dylan's life and sends him on a dangerous journey in search of justice and a way forward for himself that can allow him to live with and beyond the shadow of his past.
Hertz's novel is compulsively readable - as each chapter concluded, I kept wanting to read on, feeling at turns anxious, unsteady, hopeful, infuriated along with the protagonist in his search of some semblance of peace and justice. Everything Dylan goes through in the novel feels incredibly "real" and palpable, even the most horrendous moments recounted from his past. Readers should be forewarned that this novel deals with some very dark, disturbing, and visceral events involving sexual abuse and drug use especially, and those events are rendered with raw and descriptive language. As a reader, I appreciated that Hertz didn't pull punches, and that he used the power of his writing as a tool to bring a reader into both the dark/disturbing and hopeful aspects of his protagonist's life, to consider both the effects of trauma on survivors of abuse but also the flaws of our judicial system in seeking comeuppance for past wrongs.
I think this is a particularly important novel in the contemporary queer literary canon for its frank depiction of abuse. In a literary landscape where so many queer novels are dealing with coming-out, romance, marriage, and only occasionally messy or darker themes and storylines, I think we need more novels like THE LOOKBACK WINDOW.
I'm giving this novel 5 stars, rounded up from 4 1/2, because in the early chapters of the novel, when Dylan and Moans are visiting a clothing-optional resort in Fort Lauderdale, while I understood that these scenes were introducing the concept of the Child Victims Act and Dylan's reaction to it within the framework of the novel, I wasn't hooked and fully along for the ride of the novel until they had returned from their trip and the reader was pulled more into Dylan's day-to-day life. I wished for more of a knockout start to the story - but once I was grabbed by the book, there was no "lookback."