elizabetta

4.5 stars

The young, unnamed naval officer in ‘The Brig’ has his world turned completely upside-down when his conscience gets the best of him. It’s the Vietnam war era and he can no longer be part of a war he doesn’t believe in, he wants nothing to do with killing. Many young men found themselves in this position during a frightening time when the draft forced them into an untenable situation. The officer’s asking for CO status and a discharge gets him into trouble with the higher-ups and he is disciplined by being sent to ‘the brig’.

Apparently the author has based part of the story on the experience of his partner, Kelson, so some of what we read is real, some fabricated. True or not, this is a total mind-fuck...know as you’re reading it that you’ll yearn for the best, wanting something positive, some squeak of hope for the young unnamed soldier; but the author has you in the palm of his hand in an ultimate manipulation.

The writing is so very good, lucid and plain, and the main character compelling: we see him go from devout and celibate seminarian to naval officer to deviant. What issue I have is with the men who abuse the officer and call him ‘faggot’. They are themselves obviously not heterosexual. For me, the perpetrators lose much of their power because of this.

"Some men feel it so strongly and are such cowards about facing it, that they come to hate those who can face it. They go around bashing queers, trying to destroy in others what they have come to loathe in themselves. Itʼs the same mechanism that makes the ugly hate the beautiful, the cowardly hate the brave, and the evil undermine the good, never realizing that the beauty, the bravery, and the goodness have been purchased with hard work, not inherited from providence."

The story really kicks into gear about three-quarters of the way in. It’s not that the beginning wasn’t engrossing. What started as predominantly BDSM porn shows deeper waters as the unnamed officer starts to examine the abuse, his reaction to it, and to his tormentors. What draws me more to him is how he clings to his humanity in the face of extreme physical and mental torture, how he continually tries to turn the abuse into something positive (little though it is) to keep from cracking completely. This is not done facilely, it's revealed in small, simple ways, to show its earning. He has to come out as a changed man from this ‘punishment’ but he uses the experience to reshape himself to a more truthful understanding. Other readers may see this in a different way, that maybe this is my own need for some positivity. (I kept oscillating between 3 and 5 stars during my reading, another example of the clever manipulation.)

This is not a romance, it is a very tough read made by a skilled hand. ‘The Brig’ has well done BDSM scenes and mind-play as well as examines some real issues during the time of the civil rights movement and before ‘don’t ask/don’t tell’.