Stray

by Sheri Joseph

Book Overview

A musician is torn between his perfect wife and a young actor in an unconventional, inescapable love triangle. Thirty-year-old Kent McKutcheon has come to Atlanta with little ambition beyond his... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 159692201X
• ISBN13: 9781596922013
• Release Date: February 2007
• Publisher: MacAdam/Cage Publishing
• Length: 444 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.4" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Very Good Story!!

Paul left Kent. Kent got married to Maggie. Paul and Kent meet again. Kent tries to leave. Paul befriends Maggie. And trouble ensues. By trying to get close to Kent through Maggie, Paul and Maggie end up starting their own kind of relationship. And Kent? He has no clue who or what he wants. As this three-part affair continues on, things get more mixed up and when someone is murdered, all the careful lies begin to unravel. Stray started out slow for me, but it soon became very interesting and hard to put down. The relationships between all the characters involved felt real and well-done. Paul and Kent were a couple that never really seemed to have stability, and Kent soon found that in Mennonite Maggie. Paul, however, continued life by hooking up with random guys, even with one of his acting professors, Bernard Falk. Bernard invites Paul to move in with him, but with the passion in their relationship gone on Paul's side and Bernard dying of cancer, it's no wonder that Paul was so eager to welcome Kent back into his life. Being the youngest out of the three (Kent, Paul, and Maggie), Paul was definitely my favorite. He wanted a family and someone to love, and feeling that way didn't allow him to just let Kent go and made him search out Maggie, the one who had Kent. The book showed all sides of the characters, letting you in and allowing you to see what they were thinking and their various motives behind their actions. Maggie always gives back and can't say no, but what does that get her into? And how is her past affecting her future? Kent misses Paul, who was the one that left, and still loves him, but he does love Maggie too. He isn't gay; it's just Paul. Paul wants somewhere to go. Someone to love. He's growing up in some ways, but he can't in others. Stray is a great story of love lost and love found and the many complications that occur when lives become intertwined. Link to my site on this profile!

wonderful characters

This book far surpassed my expectations; after reading the book jacket, I expected a story of a classic love triangle. Bob loves Mary but Mary loves Jack you know? While there is an traingular element to "Stray," its so much more than that. The story revolves around three characters: Kent, the married musician who has never truly gotten over Paul, a lover from his past who just walked out on him one day. Paul, the young actor, who can't commit or take anything too seriously, and finally, Maggie, Kent's kind hearted wife, who unwittingly gets stuck in the middle. Kent is pretty content with his life. His job is good, his marriage is good...life is good. One day he unexpectedly runs into Paul, and the inner turmoil starts to run rampant. Paul and Kent begin a passionate affair, all the while Kent makes it clear that he is happy with his wife and has no intentions of leaving. Out of curiousity and jealousy, Paul inserts himself into Maggie's life. The two become fast friends, and Maggie comes to care for Paul immensely; all the while not knowing that Paul is also sleeping with her husband. In addition to the emotional rollercoaster of a plot, there's a bit of a murder mystery thrown in as well. Paul lives with an older man, Bernard, who is dying of cancer. Paul returns from the club one night to find Bernard dead, and himself the prime suspect. While this aspect of the plot does keep the story moving forward, and the relationships developing, its not a crucial part. The strongest part of this book is the author's ability to develop her characters. The development isn't rushed, and each and every detail that we learn of the character adds to the story and makes the whole thing come together. Joseph has created three very different, very likeable, very real characters, and they are what makes this story a good one.

A surprisingly terrific read

Whether you're reading a book or watching a play or a movie or a tv show, the bottom line is, to me, always about the writing. Yes, you can cover up with convoluted plot detail, or a great performance, or flashy direction or camera angles, but ultimately nothing matters more than the writing. It's the single aspect that pierces the heart and the soul (when it's good, that is; when it's not, it is a very depressing experience). Beyond that, the element of suprise makes a work special; when everything that happens seems right but not predictable. THE SOPANOS, at its best, falls into this category: a well-written series that generally is elevated by its lack of predictability. STRAY falls into that category, too. Not a work for the ages, perhaps, and certainly, the gay/straight/bisexual plot has its moments of predictable twists and turns that sometimes are strictly melodrama in place of art. But there is an honesty and a tenderness in the writing, even in its most violent passages, that overrides the somewhat purple plot points and carries this novel forward. Ms. Joseph really can write, and write very well, and even when you sort of know what's going to happen, there is a passion to her writing, almost a breakneck speed that propels the reader through more than 400 pages, hating to put the book down. I was never sure how this would end, and I teared up when it did, sorry that it was over, and wanting to send a copy to a friend. That makes it a pretty special book.

"You have something more with her, I suppose."

In a mix of unexpected passion and the beguilement of a happy marriage, three people are thrust into a heartbreaking situation with no easy resolution. Kent engaged in a volatile, obsessive relationship with the decade-younger Paul, the attraction between them irresistible. It ended abruptly. Three years later the two men come face to face in a library in Atlanta, both stunned by the feelings that surface, drawn back to an impossible yearning to be with one another. Now Paul is twenty-one, beginning a promising acting career and jaded by his lifestyle, living with a professor/mentor, Bernard, who is slowly dying of cancer. More to the crux of the dilemma, Kent has married. A Mennonite and a lawyer, Maggie is everything Kent has imagined in a wife, a truly remarkable person who actually lives her belief of daily forgiveness, letting "God sort out the casualties". Crazy with envy, Paul is desperate to hang on to Kent, his former cruel insouciance gradually chipped away by a love he has yet to acknowledge, trapped in a wasteful lifestyle of excess and self-indulgence. For his part, Kent is helpless to resist, bifurcating his existence to survive a growing entanglement with Paul while protecting his marriage. Maggie is the innocent, unsuspecting. Impulsively, Paul seeks Maggie out, making friends, volunteering his services with her church group; at first merely curious, Paul is strangely seduced by Maggie (Magdalena) for the same reasons as Kent, her spirit a balm to his own troubled soul. It is the subtle influence of Maggie's influence on both Kent and Paul that gives the novel its note of grace. What would be damning behavior is transformed through her ministrations as a lawyer and as a compassionate woman, allowing Paul to trust someone he has grievously harmed by his association with Kent. Kent fully realizes Maggie's extraordinary value in his life; it is to a great degree why he struggles to deny his passion for Paul, because Maggie is worth a good life, because those who know her are blessed. With a shocking murder as the catalyst for the inevitable denouement of this triangle, the protagonists are confounded by a predicament with no acceptable solution, the existing emotional tension unbearable, yet exquisitely rendered by this gifted author. Transcending sexual stereotypes, these souls are faced with painful decisions, three sundered by reality into two, an unbearable choice to be made. Skillfully blending the prose of tortured love and potentially agonizing loss, the pages of this remarkable novel dance to a rhythm of their own. Luan Gaines/ 2007.