A review by zed_dog
My Policeman by Bethan Roberts

emotional

4.75

The way this story is told is exquisitely painful and absolutely masterful. Marion and Patrick are in many ways kindred souls, each projecting a romantic fantasy onto the same man—whose own perspective is conspicuously, and tellingly, absent. The contrast between their accounts is as striking as the similarity: while Marion tells her story with the benefit of hindsight (in a confessional tone reminiscent of Giovanni’s Room), Patrick’s narration is immediate, his words recorded day by day in the throes of infatuation, a la Call Me By Your Name. 

I find myself comparing this book to these masterpieces of queer literature, and I think it belongs on the same shelf. I wouldn’t say that the passion and intimacy of the prose can rival that of Baldwin and Aciman (I’m not sure anyone’s could), but the genius of My Policeman is in its form: these two narrators, telling the same story forty years apart, fancying themselves like two planets orbiting a sun—and yet ending up appearing, at least to me, more like twin stars, orbiting a black hole.