Author: William Jack Sibley
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent
Publishing Platform
Publication Date: 2012
Genre: Adult Fiction, LGBT Fiction,
Contemporary Fiction
Pages: 304
Buy: The Book Depository
Book Description: The story of a man in prison who falls in love, through lengthy correspondence, with a woman he’s never met. Getting out he goes to find her and discovers that the love letters he’s received were written not by a woman but by a closeted gay man – a small town minister. Not only did the minister deceive the prisoner, but he sent a photograph of his sister (who lives with him) as a picture representation of himself. Not only is the sister unaware of the ruse, she herself happens to be a lesbian. The ex-prisoner has fallen in love physically with a woman who doesn’t know he exists and mentally with a man he doesn’t know how to love. Set in the Texas Gulf Coast fishing village of Rockport, Sigh Too Deep for Words is a darkly humorous and contemplative examination of the parameters of love, sex, sexuality and cultural perspective.
I was given this book to review by the publicist.
When I first started this book I had low expectations. Hecate had also gotten a copy to review and finished it before me. She didn’t like it all too well and it made me a little worried but then again she can be rather picky with her reading (it’s true don’t hate me!)
I was actually excited to read this book because it was LGBT related and the plot line looked really interesting. The story was interesting enough but by the time I was reading the last half of the book I wasn’t sure where the story was going to go. I was hoping it end in this happy romance and everyone get’s with the person they want, etc. etc. But as a real word type of novel I knew this wasn’t going to go exactly the way I wish it would – c’est la vie.
I was really happy by the end though, just the last page made everything fit perfectly. Sure it wasn’t what I was expecting but the feeling behind the words and the characters made the ending page perfect for me. This is a love story, not the typical one our society has written where the guy get’s the girl at the end or what not. This is a real life love story. The one where a guy learns what love is all about. It takes all these strange life events to realize that the person he loved most was there all along.
Some of my favorite quotes:
Exactly how accommodating can we make this closet we’ve purposely inserted ourselves into?
page 124
The decades of repression, angst and hesitancy burst forth in an uninterrupted flood of impassioned correspondence. It was as if he were breathing bona fide oxygen again after gasping at life from a suffocating existence.
page 124.
My Rating: ★★★★
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