Darkness Descending

Bethann Korsmit
iUniverse (2007)
ISBN 9780595444052
Reviewed by Nancy Wade for Reader Views (1/08)


This was the first book of this type that I had ever read.  It was an eye-opening experience.  This type of family problems has not affected me closely.  I am aware that most families have some family member who is bisexual but have not realized until I read “Dark Descending” how deeply it affects everyone within that person’s circle - family/friends/co-workers/innocent bystanders.

The book takes a man, who loves his family more deeply than he loves himself, through his trials and tribulations in regards to his homosexuality and how his family accepts/disapproves of his lifestyle.  Every family member has his own desires, phobias, and misconceptions to deal with, including their love for each other and the family unity and how his sexual orientation affects them each in their own way.

The son refuses to have anything to do with him.  The son, who is a public figure, sees his father through the eyes of his political advisers and contemporary companions.  The son will not let his wife or his twin children access his father, returning all gifts for them and himself by stating refusing delivery.

His mother picks her new lover - male - over her son - and his opinion that he is only after her money and not her. She says that he is just like his father - a controller - and that she now does not consider him her son.  He is right but by the time his mother figures this out - she has married him and has had a stroke.  The new husband does not want to spend the money to pay for the best treatment nor the time to spend with her - so he takes all the money and leaves.

The man’s lover breaks it off with him because he will not go out in public with him as his boyfriend.  The same night his mother disowns him.  He ends up in jail, on a holiday weekend, for drinking, by the police who hate homosexuals and cannot find anyone who will post bail.  When his son has a friend to finally get him out of jail, he tries to hang himself but is discovered by his son who heard about his grandmother’s heart attack.

Through his treatment by a doctor who treats him like he matters, some staff members who hate homosexuals, an asylum who does nothing but ties him to his bed and refuses to feed or treat him except to keep him medicated, he loses touch with reality.  He thinks he is only 15-years-old and remembers nothing after that age.

His son and family come home to take care of him as a friend.  They learn to love him and his lover as people.  It takes longer for his son to let go of his preconceived idea of homosexuals and their love.

He remembers and takes his lover - who had been beaten and raped severely - away for a vacation, just the two of them to a deserted island.  They agreed to move in together and live as a unit.  It takes a lot to go against what society feels is considered NORMAL and live and love your life the way you want.

This book is not for those who are homophobic or have bias against people who love their own sex.  It is a book for the mature adults who understand love regardless of who loves.                                                                                                                                                     

This is an uplifting book - about love - the cover is dark and forbidding.  I thought at first it was either a horror or murder mystery book.

“Darkness Descending” is a love story told with all the problems that people have.  The only difference is the sexual orientation of the lovers and society’s belief in the normal.


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