The Story of the Night

In this post I am going to write about a book I absolutely loved, a book written by an Irish writer Colm Tóibin - The Story of the Night.

It is a, most of all, a book about gay love. The main subject is not about being a gay, though, it is a story of a life, a touching story. The book is divided into three parts.

Part One

The first part focuses on the relationships with his mother… His

The Story Of The Night by Colm Toibin

mother is a British woman who gets married to an Argentine. They move to Argentina to live there. His mother is kind of odd - maybe traditonal and rather depressed. The father dies and she gets very depressed. It seems that his mother makes it rather difficult for him. He has his first gay experiences in a local sauna, where guys go to meet up and have sex. He becomes interested in one of his students (the main character is studying English and he becomes an Enlgish teacher). The guy he becomes interested in is straight and nothing really comes out of it…

Part Two

This part is talking about his career. He is working in a school as a teacher and finds it very boring, in fact, he hates the job. Through some friends he meets Americans who have come to Argentina to help to set up a democratic goverment. He quickly becomes useful to them because he can fluently speak both English and Spanish languages. He starts his own consultancy and makes quite a lot of money… Richard, that’s his name, is still quite unhappy about his love life… He has a few casual encounters, and he also meets a guy whom he very much likes…

Part Three

The last part focuses on his personal life… He falls a love with a guy who feels the same for him. They move in together… It is almost perfect - they desire and love each other, the sex is good… The book doesn’t really describe it much, but well enough to express how good they had it…

I will not tell you how it ends but I found it very … I don’t know, touching. I have to say that it is one of the most powerful books I have read in the last years. I woke up in the middle of the night being puzzled about the book. I read over 300 pages in just one and a half days. I wished it would have lasted longer. I very much recommend it to anyone - whether you are gay or straight, black or white. It is a good read.

Please leave your comment on what you think of the book if you have read it.

Jeremy Dufour