Elizabeth Harris’ first novel has an unusual pair of main characters: a long-married gay married couple in New Jersey, one of whom has drifted politically rightwards over the years and now decides to run for Congress as a Republican. His husband, Gabe, is a public-school teacher and strongly liberal. They are both aware of the divergence of their political views, but have adjusted to them largely by avoiding discussion.
Ethan had always been to Gabe’s right politically, and twenty years ago, when they started dating, that was fine. [..] Even when they disagreed in theory, they still rooted for the same team. Ethan worked for a Democrat.
But over time, Ethan’s views had shifted. [..] As he became more conservative, the overlapping ground between them narrowed. Today, there was almost nothing left.
They are still in love with each other and their daughter Chloe, but Ethan’s congressional race is going to shine a spotlight on his views that Gabe might not be comfortable with. The way Gabe sees it
We moved to the suburbs so we could have a backyard and join a town pool, not so Ethan could become the next Newt Gingrich. [..] Issues we can’t talk about will become the center of our lives. And his politics, which I hate, will become the most prominent thing about either of us.
But after some agonizing, Gabe agrees because
“If I say no, then I will be taking this thing from him that he’s always wanted. I’ll be saying ‘Sorry, forget your dream, let’s just live the life I want.'”
The love and support between Ethan and Gabe are the sweetest part of this novel, but that relationship is going to be seriously tested over the course of the novel. In fact, after Ethan announces his candidacy, friends text Gabe with comments like ‘Ethan is a Republican?’ ‘Does this mean you’re a Republican too?’ Gabe’s public-school fellow teachers ask grimly about Ethan’s position on gun laws (‘supports some limits’), abortion rights (‘personally anti-choice, but should be left to the states’), gay marriage (‘in favour’, not surprisingly), creationism taught in schools, and immigration.
Existence as a gay Republican requires an adjustment of ideas, but Ethan is up to the task of explaining himself to audiences:
I realized that conservatives were the ones protecting what America values. Conservatives were the ones who knew that I should be making decisions for myself and my family. Conservatives were the ones promoting American interests at home and abroad. Conservatives were the ones protecting families, promoting families. […] I have more in common with a conservative pastor in the South than I do with a liberal gay man in New York City.
That’s the crux of this novel: that the characters (and by extension everyone) are part of many overlapping sets, and that some might choose to prioritize their views on immigration or fiscal policy over their gay identity.
In parallel with the events surrounding Ethan and Gabe runs another story: that of Nicole and Kate, occasional lovers in their twenties who broke up and have had no communication for twenty years. Nicole is now married to a man, has two children who she adores, and is a suburban housewife, while Kate has gone on to become a relatively accomplished journalist.
Perhaps oddly for a woman author, the thread following Nicole and Kate is less natural and convincing than the one following Ethan and Gabe. The two women seem to have little in common besides torrid sex. Does it matter if they get together or not? Nicole is drawn as a solidly self-centered person, both in during their first affair as well as their second twenty years later, which results in the reader being less invested in a positive outcome for her. The complexity of Gabe’s reactions and the Ethan/Gabe situation is quite a bit more interesting.
The novel is written from three points of view: Gabe’s, Nicole’s, and Kate’s. Of the three, Nicole’s chapter was a plod, but both Gabe and Kate had interesting things to say, even if their voices were not all that distinct.
Each thread has one person who remains annoyingly calm through heated discussions. In one relationship it is Ethan:
Ethan had learned never to suggest that Gabe calm down during these conversations [about politics and social policy]. It only made things worse.
and in the other case it is Nicole’s husband Austin.
Austin had always been the calmer of their pair. [..] Self-doubt was a concept he was familiar with but didn’t really understand, like the physics of airplanes. It was something other people dealt with.
Thus the two relationships both have a calm confident conservative married to an excitable liberal: this made the book seem rather unimaginative, as if the author could not envision any other combination.
There are several children involved: Nicole & Austin’s two, as well as Gabe and Ethan’s daughter Chloe. I did like the portrayal of the children, who are realistic time-sinks, energetic, original, occasionally cantankerous, and beloved by their parents.
Every character makes some very bad decisions, either in the past (ghosting a lover, or a car accident caused by alcohol) or the present (not hiding evidence of an affair on one’s phone, or posting a social media rant while drunk), and the fallout from those causes much of the tension in this novel.
This is a novel to read because of its subject and topicality, and not because of its writing or wit.
~ How to Sleep at Night, by Elizabeth Harris ~ HarperCollins, 2025.
Recent Comments