The situation in which Peter died leads, at least in part, to Martin’s present attraction to eighteen-year-old David, with the complicated attraction/repulsion David feels in response, and his resulting, problematic drinking. Not all gays are created equal? Well, not everyone’s family is the same. The book's situations do not lead to pat answers. The truth about Diane leaving her ex-husband comes out, proving equally confusing. The characters weave their way through the violence of bombings, a hospital’s mental ward, the landmarks in Paris — The Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame — and finally home before the novel’s culmination. The book is a page turner and kept me up ’til 5:00 am, before the story came to a quitting point, where Diane, the burned-out teacher, and her younger friend, Martin — chaperones on a school trip — end up moving separately to Europe, leaving their problematic lives in America.

But Kelley does not end Conquering Venus by wrapping things up in that proverbial neat, little package, nor does he leave us in a world we do not believe possible with everyone riding into the sunset. What Kelley does is offer hope as surely as Martin conquers Venus, exchanging the Venus de Milo for the Winged Victory.

Article Author: Helen Losse

Helen Losse is the author of Better With Friends, published by Rank Stranger Press in 2009 and the Poetry Editor of The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. Her recent poetry publications include The Wild Goose Poetry Review, Shape of a Box, Distillery and Hobble Creek Review. …

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