Swoony Sunday Book Review: "Showmance"
Chad Beguelin's fiction debut is a fun and sweet romance about the joys of going home and finding the love you didn't know you were looking for.
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Welcome to another edition of “Swoony Sunday,” where I’ll be reviewing romance in all of its forms: film, TV, books. As a Pisces, I love to love, and what better way to express that than through writing about romance, the genre that’s all about finding your heart’s desire?
Warning: Spoilers for the novel follow.
As some of you have no doubt gathered by now, I’m a real sucker for any kind of romance novel that sees a character coming back to their smalltown and reconnecting with their past and their roots while also staying true to who they are. I’m an even bigger sucker for stories that focus on a messy hero who still manages to find love with the hunky jock they knew in high school. If a book has all of those elements? Well, you can be sure that I am going to read it, love it, and sing its praises.
Showmance is just such a novel. Written by Chad Beguelin (famous for co-writing the book and writing lyrics to the Broadway play The Prom), the film is told from the point of view of playwright Noah Adams. Though he’s had some success as a playwright, he seems poised to really make it big with his musical version of King Lear. Unfortunately it’s nothing less than a disaster. Adding to the problem is the fact that his father has just had a heart attack, which leads him back to his hometown, where he has to confront his demons and his past. Things go from bad to even worse when he not only develops a crush on Luke, one of the men he thinks bullied him in high school but also has to take the helm of a community theater production of his failed play. It all makes for a very funny, very silly, and very swoony romance.
Now, to be upfront, Noah is a bit of an asshole when the book begins. This is a man, after all, who spent much of his youth in small town Illinois and who has spent his life in New York City running as far away from that as he possibly could. As a result, he tends to view everyone in his hometown through a lens of patronizing superiority, with a snarky remark for everyone in his vicinity, including his very sweet and slightly daffy mother. This behavior persists for the first half of the novel, and he seems to go out of his way to be rude and dismissive of everyone with whom he comes into contact. While this can be irritating, it’s also clear that much of this is a defense mechanism to keep him from really grappling with his feelings.
And this is precisely where Luke comes in. Though it takes him a while, Noah finally discovers the truth about his old bully: that he didn’t actually call him any of the names he remembered. In fact, he stopped the other bullies from keeping up their behavior. Once they get that little roadblock out of the way, it’s not long before their feelings for one another are beginning to flower. Beguelin has a keen eye for how to keep the romantic tension in play while also making sure that we see these two characters as endgame. And, while the novel is quite chaste–there’s sex, but it’s not really described–I did appreciate the way that he was able to capture physical, sexual, and emotional intimacy in a way that felt authentic and earned.
The only wrinkle–okay, one of the wrinkles–is that Noah already has a boyfriend when the book begins. It turns out, though, that he’s a bit of a jerk, and he ends up cheating on his beloved with another, more promising playwright, leading to a messy breakup and an even messier failed reconciliation. I will say that this part of the novel felt a bit forced, since we as readers have been given really no evidence that Chase is a dick until he inadvertently reveals that he was cheating. Once he’s out of the way, though, we can turn our attention back to Luke, the man of our (and Noah’s) dreams.
From the moment that we meet Luke, it’s clear to us–if not to Noah–that he has the hots for the man that he knew back in high school. He’s also so damn lovable that you just want to reach in the novel and give him a hug, even as you want to smack Noah for being such a dick to him anytime the two spend any time together. Though he would be well within his rights to tell Noah to fuck off, he doesn’t do so. Instead, he repeatedly offers him kindness and generosity, and openness of spirit that is in keeping with his general personality. This is in keeping with his generally good heart, and he’s as kind and supportive of his mother as he is of Noah’s parents.
Indeed, if I have one complaint about Showmance, it’s that we don’t get any chapters from Luke’s point of view. I continue to think that romance works best when you get to spend some time in both leads’ heads. Still, I do like the way that Luke is portrayed, i.e. as someone with his own demons and his own struggles that he has to go through as these two people start to figure out whether they can really make it as a couple or whether this is only going to be a flash-in-the-pan type of romance.
I also appreciated the way that the book really grappled with some weighty things. Anyone who has ever emerged from a small town knows that it’s not easy to go back to where you came from and to grapple with some of your own prejudices and misunderstandings. Noah does a lot of growing up as the novel proceeds, and he gradually learns that both the people that he grew up with and his own father contain multitudes, that the fact that he lives in New York City doesn’t mean that he knows everything. It’s really quite delicious to see him knocked down a peg or two by the people that he regards as little more than rubes.
I really loved Showmance. It’s one of those novels that is both deeply funny and yet also deeply touching. Because we learn so much about Noah, and because we’re invited to feel along with him as he grapples with his rapidly changing circumstances, we really do want him to succeed, even if there are also many times that we want to strangle him. Maybe it’s because, like Noah, I’ve spent much of my life running from my small town origins and my father has been grappling with his own fair share of health issues, but I found this to be one of the most powerful reads that I’ve done in quite a while. We of course never lose sight of the central romance, but we also come to appreciate the small town in the same way that Noah does.
Thus, Showmance fits neatly into that delightful romance genre that shows just how delightful small town life can be, even for those, like Noah, who’ve had a very hefty taste of the life of the big city. Fortunately for him, there’s a last-minute deal with Elton John (arguably the most unlikely plot turn in the book) means that he’ll be able to work from wherever he likes. Thus, he gets to keep his job and get his happy-ever-after with the very dreamy Luke. Is this all a little too good to be true and perhaps quite unbelievable? Absolutely. But then, why else do we read romance except to escape from our own lives into the gauzy one of fiction? I don’t know about anyone else, but these days that seems mighty fine to me.