Petretta, J. V. An Impossible Dream Story. Dog Ear Publishing, 2011. 251 p. $15.95. 978-1-4575-0680-2.
J. V. Petretta confesses that his novel, which reads like a memoir or autobiography, is “inspired by many true events in my life.” The hero of this great story is Vincent (Vinnie, “Viper”) Pirelli, a young boy growing up in Indiana in the 1950s and ‘60s. With a homophobic, berating father and an indifferent mother, young Vinnie finds escape from his difficult home life by excelling in a number of jobs and riding on his beloved bicycle.
Years later Vinnie escapes to the military, where he falls in love with a fellow soldier, “Bobby Sox,” but both are afraid to demonstrate their love with anything other than sleeping chastely together and roughhousing. He later marries a Thai woman whom he meets during military R&R. They raise a family and are happy together until Vinnie finally comes to terms with his deep feelings for men. When they painfully divorce, his wife takes everything.
Still trying to win his father’s praise, Vinnie leaves his successful military career when his father calls him home with the promise of a good job. The job disappears, and he starts all over again at the bottom, this time in the restaurant business, where he succeeds once again. He begins living a gay life-style, going overboard to make up for lost time, and contracts HIV. He ends up homeless and very ill in Buffalo, NY, and relies on the VA hospital that cares for and nurtures him.
Returning to his boyhood love of biking, Vinnie cooks up a harebrained scheme to ride a bike with a trailer 5,000 miles across the country to raise money for AIDS research and support. He sets out from Buffalo, riding west against prevailing winds, learning only later that most cross-country bikers ride in the opposite direction to benefit from the winds. But he makes it to Seattle, Oregon and California, ending in San Diego.
Having returned to Buffalo, again he is very ill and homeless, living in his car. At the VA hospital, he meets a wonderful female pastor of an open and affirming United Church of Christ, so he decides to go, and on his first visit he meets a garrulous character who turns out to be Bobby Sox, his first love. Here the novel (memoir) ends, happily ever after, I dearly hope.
This is Peretta’s first novel. I hope he writes more. He is planning a big bicycle book tour (see www.animpossibledreamstory.com). He had lots of help with this book, including editing, but a few infelicitous phrases ended up in the finished work, such as “an updated policy … on Equal Employment Opportunities, which included ‘sexual origin’ as an added category.” Surely he means “sexual orientation.” Luckily none of the editing problems cause any harm.
This is a great read even though it is painful at times, and would be worthy of any library interested in a genuine record of a difficult gay life from the 1950s to the 1990s.
Reviewer: James Doig Anderson
Professor Emeritus, Library and Information Science, Rutgers University