by S. A. Cosby, 2021
Sometimes I want to just dive into something trashy and escapist, and that’s when I reach for some good ol’ fashioned crime fiction. Let the bodies pile up!
Razorblade Tears: A Novel is about two married gay men, Isiah and Derek, who get murdered. One is Black, one is white, and they have a 3-year-old daughter named Arianna. As the police falter in the investigation of their deaths, indeed classify it as “inactive” within a few weeks, their fathers jump into action.
The two particular fathers of these two particular gay men are the focus of the book as they go about trying to avenge the murders of their sons. These two fathers are an unlikely pair to be taking on these roles for a variety of reasons. Ike, the Black father of Isiah, spent 15 years in prison and has worked hard since his release to rebuild his life and reform himself into a respectable, responsible adult. He’s built a landscaping business, is responsible for employees and customers, and has kept his nose clean. He’s also rebuilt his relationship with his wife. In short, he’s done everything right since getting out. The only thing he really did wrong was not accepting that his son was gay, not accepting his lifestyle choices, or not even attending his son’s wedding.
Derek’s white father Buddy Lee has a similar past: time spent “inside,” only he’s done not nearly as well at remaking himself. Didn’t waste any time reading self-help books. He’s divorced, living in a rundown two-bedroom trailer, drinks constantly, and is showing signs of lung cancer. He’s also nurtured, rather than shunned, his relationships with his criminal past, as he’s found out that calling in favors from time to time can come in handy. Buddy Lee also came down hard on Derek when he came out as gay—he couldn’t accept it, couldn’t accept that his partner was Black, and refused to attend their wedding.
Yet for both of these men, when someone had the audacity to hurt their sons, their latent paternal love for them boiled to the surface. Buddy Lee approached Ike with “doing something about this, poking around to see what we can find out,” and Ike initially slammed the door in Buddy Lee’s face. No way was he going to risk everything he had built and worked for, when this was clearly police work. It took a continued series of blatant homophobic attacks directed straight at their sons, even after death, such as defacing and smashing their gravesite headstones, that enraged Ike enough to jolt him into action.
This is definitely a crime story for our time. Dealing with issues of homophobia and also racism, as these two fathers grapple not only with issues of homosexuality in their sons, but also the fact that they chose a mixed-race partnership and created a mixed-race daughter, we see them struggle with outright rejection and make the slow crawl toward acceptance.
A very clever denouement—the identity of the killer will surprise you.
My only criticism of the audiobook was that the narrator couldn’t make vocal distinctions between the white father and the Black father—they both sounded awfully Black to me. I guess if you read it in hard copy you won’t have to worry about that.
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