Bashed: A Love Story

Rick R. Reed
MLR Press (2009)
ISBN 9781608200283
Reviewed by Tyler R. Tichelaar for Reader Views (5/09)


Rick R. Reed has wowed his fans with suspenseful thrillers and complicated psychological portraits of killers in such fast-paced novels as “I.M.” and “High Risk.” Then, in “Orientation,” his writing took a different turn as he experimented with the supernatural in the form of reincarnation, letting love enter into his dramatic world. “Bashed: A Love Story” follows that turn in his style, although somewhat less successfully.

“Bashed” is the story of Donald and Mark, two gay men and lovers, who are assaulted by three gay bashers, Ronnie, Justin, and Luis, on their way home from the bar one night. Donald survives the attack, but Mark is killed. Donald cannot remember the faces of his attackers, so justice does not look like it will be done. However, several coincidences result in his being placed into a dangerous position again from his attackers, primarily because one attacker, Justin, just happens to have a gay uncle who lives downstairs from Donald.

Reed retains his strong dramatic style in the early pages of the novel, describing the initial attack, and again with the tense ending. The middle of the novel, however, lacked the fast pace of his previous thriller books. While I enjoy supernatural romance, I was never quite clear, when Donald kept seeing his dead lover, Mark, whether he was hallucinating, or whether Mark was really a ghost trying to send a message to Donald. What I found most difficult, however, was that Donald, while definitely in mourning for Mark, would still return to the gay bars just a few months after losing his boyfriend so he could have anonymous sex.

While Reed’s novels are definitely gay fiction, previously his suspense/thriller side dominated the plots. In this novel, however, he is far more graphic about the homosexuality of his characters, and while previously his gay men were largely in committed relationships, this time, anonymous sex is more common. Without making judgments about lifestyle choices, I felt the very graphic depictions of men having anonymous sex in the backroom of a bar in front of a crowd of other men to be rather repulsive. Reed’s past novels have been tasteful, if erotic, in depicting gay sex, but the graphic descriptions in this novel were too much, as realistic as they may be.

While I did not enjoy “Bashed” as much as Reed’s other novels, I did find the ending satisfying, and I thought Ronny, one of the gay bashers, was an interesting, complicated character, whose latent homosexuality was nicely implied without being overdone to explain his motives. I would continue to read Reed’s novels, hoping for less graphic depictions and a more even blending of suspense, romance, and the supernatural in future plots.

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