2020/140: Seaworthy -- K L Noone

Colby ran a hand through his own hair and offered Jason an encouraging head-tip, and then did—
Something. No good word for it. Suddenly he was William Crawford, Viscount Easterly: brittle and breakable and lonely and longing, good with maps and ciphers, never having been allowed further than the family estate on his own. Even his shoulders carried that weight, thin and distressed. [loc. 189]

Jason Mirelli is an actor noted for his action-movie roles, notably the John Kill series: 'my name's John Kill. That's what I do.' He's had less work since he came out as bi, but now there's a project that's highly relevant to his interests: a movie of a 1940s novel about the homosexual relationship between a nineteenth-century naval captain and a consumptive, aristocratic cryptographer. (Why yes, the Aubrey/Maturin books are acknowledged as an influence in the Afterword.)

Unfortunately Jason's first encounter with the film's producer and star, openly-gay Colby Kent, does not go as well as might be expected. But they're both professionals, right? And that frisson between them in the audition, that was just the characters. Right?

Seaworthy is the first volume of the 'Character Bleed' series: 'character bleed' is a term used to describe the blurring of actor and character, and it is an apt description for the experiences of both Jason and Colby. Their characters are in love, and they are becoming increasingly drawn to one another. This is immensely convenient for the film, as both have complex anxieties rooted in real-life experiences: Jason is afraid of water, Colby is still recovering from an abusive relationship. As the fiction they're filming and the reality they're experiencing overlap (and perhaps converge), Jason draws strength not only from Colby but also from the fictional Captain Stephen Lanyon, and Colby is similarly buoyed by Will Crawford as well as by his co-star.

What I loved about this novel (and recognised from the author's other work) was the lyrical prose and the almost animist descriptions: Jason and Colby both think of the objects around them as having emotions, and this is not nearly as irritating or irrational as it might sound. An elevator provides 'friendly' support, a towel 'collected the sound for him'.

Seaworthy is moving, romantic and often extremely funny: it dropped a star because it felt more like the first part of a two-part novel than the first volume in a series, but I am looking forward to reading the rest of the series over the winter holiday. (Actually, I'm going to reinstate that star in honour of Colby being a fan of 'Heartbreak Beat' by the Psychedelic Furs: one among many cultural allusions that made me warm to the character!)