Small-sized reviews, raves, and recommendations.

In a hauntingly plausible near-future, Lucy arrives in a small Eastern Colorado town to search for Helen, a woman who knew her dead brother Mikey. There Are Reasons For This, by Nini Berndt charts a strange and compelling love triangle of sorts. Helen, who recently broke up with her girlfriend Cat, work as a “professional cuddler.” A gray market occupation, one of the few left as AI gobbles up jobs and opportunities from those left stranded in a bleak meat-space, the cuddler provides a kind of no-strings semi-intimate contact.

Lucy and Mikey, brother and sister, come from a Midwest family of possible wealth. Mikey travels West to escape the suffocating family situation and to fulfill his destiny as a gifted painter. But he is also not comfortable being wined and dined by the university elite set. The exclusionary ambiance and his self-awareness that he will become nothing but a tool to them makes him reluctant to reach his personal greatness. Lucy, traveling to this near-future Colorado works in a government position helping her elderly neighbor in the apartment complex.

In this near-future world, the small town is crumbling, feral dog packs wander the streets, and Big Pharma offers drugs that provide feelings. Reading the novel felt like a subtle mashup of elements taken from the works of John Rechy, Philip K. Dick, and Marguerite Duras. A heated eroticism permeates the growing relationship between Lucy and Helen. Yet this is not the typical (or stereotypical) lesbian romance. (This review may be corrupted by the Male Gaze and its attendant detritus of cultural associations, emotional baggage, and libidinous excess.) Lucy comes across as ethereal and feminine, a virginal damsel awaiting the caring hand of sexual awakening. Helen, in contrast, has a brawny physicality, not necessarily butch. In earlier years, she enjoyed playing rugby, but, in her relationship with Mikey (who, at the beginning of their contact, was a client) she wishes to herself that she wants to be a boy. Not necessarily a man or a male, but something that embodies a svelte delicacy and slender sloppy beauty that Mikey emanates. Even in this near-future, Helen desires to escape normative gender conformity, be they straight or gay.

There Are Reasons For This is Berndt’s debut novel. This work possesses a strange beauty. It tells a sad yet joyous love story amid ecological apocalypse and global economic collapse. Highly recommended.