The Life I Lead
Keith Banner is a refreshingly idiosyncratic writer; his prose is swift and unencumbered; it pulls the reader in like strange music.The Life I Leadis Banner's debut novel; it's the story of David Brewer, a pedophile who is trying to be a normal guy, but who cannot keep away from the swimming pool where the beautiful young boys congregate. He thinks he is in love with one particular boy, Nathan, and he pursues him, offers him ice cream, and takes him to the Motel 6. Dave is a churchgoing family man--he believes God is out there--but he cannot help thinking that God will forgive him, because his desire feels so unmistakable and true, like a blessing or a form of destiny.The novel's momentum comes from Dave's struggle with temptation. He dreams of succumbing to his love of boys, but he is so afraid of his desires he needs to drink screwdrivers in his car at lunchtime. In church one night, they show an antigay video with images of National Association of Man-Boy Love members in a parade. Dave imagines himself at home among those men: "Marching down the street in Anderson, Indiana, me some naked freak smiling like a crocodile, whooping it up, holding a boy's hand.... and yet I knew it was all over and we were, all of us, being marched off to wherever freaks like us are made to go." After the film, church members discuss the perverts in outraged voices, and Dave sits among them, nodding in agreement. He acts the part of the moral man but he knows it is a bluff. He is an interloper in the acceptable world.The Life I Leadis burdened by a glaring point-of-view problem. Although it is clearly Dave's story, Banner shifts between narrators. Each chapter belongs to a different character, but the voice itself changes very little. The novel's murmuring poetry remains hypnotically constant, and as a result the reader comes away with the odd impression that Dave's perspective is universal. One wonders why Banner would so deliberately break down the barriers between characters in a novel about disconnection and isolation; why he would undermine the narrative of loneliness with the illusion of a common language.--Emily White