Silver Lining

Title: Silver Lining
Author: Lucius Parhelion
Publisher: Torquere Books
Genre: M/M Historical (1950’s) Romance
Length: 35 Pages
Rating: 5 stars out of 5

A guest review by Jenre

THE BLURB

In 1958 meteorologist Dr. Rob Lanard is in Las Vegas to observe the effects of the first nuclear test explosions on the weather. His boss on this job is Dr. Phillip Argent. The two men share more than just their boredom on the job; they are both pitching for the same team, so to speak.

It’s not the kind of thing men of their position dare get caught at, though, and Rob and Phillip must perform a careful dance, making sure they don’t say anything that could give them away. Can a surprise day off and a storm conspire to let them get together the way they’ve been wanting to?

THE REVIEW

I was attracted to this story because I’ve not read many (if any) stories set in 1950’s USA, and I wanted to see whether I would enjoy such a time and setting. I certainly did as I found this story a compelling insight into the paranoia of working for the civil service in the 1950’s.

The story involves meteorologist Rob who is currently working as a consultant to the US government as they conduct experiments on the effect of radiation on the weather by firing nuclear bombs into the atmosphere and collecting data on the results. On a side note here, my reaction to this was ‘they did WHAT?’ and then spend a happy time researching Operation Argus on the Internet. Fortunately, not long after these experiments all such testing was banned by the US government.

Anyway, back to the plot. This period in US history (1958) marks the formation of NASA and our second hero, Philip Argent (who with his prematurely silver hair and slyly named surname are the links to the title, along with the fact that Rob watches clouds for a living) works in aeronautics and is part of the committee who originally forms NASA. He is also connected, at a superficial level, with Rob’s work. The story begins as Rob is watching the clouds on the roof of his Las Vegas Hotel on the first day of his vacation. He is joined by Philip and they arrange to go out later to see the showgirls together. For a while the two perform a slow but skittish dance around each other before they discover that they are both gay. The rest of the story involves them getting to know each other all the while pretending to be just friends.

One of the best things about this story was in the setting and more specifically in the oppressive atmosphere of 1950’s USA. The two men have links to the government and as a result are watched wherever they go in case they are selling secrets to the Soviets. They are followed; their belongings are searched on the sly; their rooms, their telephones and even their rental cars are bugged; and they spend the whole story looking over their shoulder with an accepting and slightly amused attitude that there is to be no privacy wherever they go. As a result of this they have to be careful of what they say and how they behave towards one another as the slightest hint that either of them are gay would be enough for them to lose their civil service jobs. This gave the story a very tense feel as I was aware throughout everything of just how exhausting and wearing it must have been for men to live their lives in hiding. However, despite this, there is a feeling of hope for the two men as they manage to find time to be with one another and joy too when an unexpected occurrence leads to some much needed time alone.

Amid the atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia, the story also feeds in small facts about the time period in the story as we learn more about the heroes’ jobs. This had me leaving the story several times as I looked up some of these details (like Operation Argus, as I mentioned earlier). I found it all completely fascinating as I know next to nothing about this period of US history. I really like it when a story can teach me something new and these little details went a long way towards my enjoyment of this story.

This historical short has everything I could want in a story. Good, accurate historical detail; characters who behaved entirely in line with how I would expect them to, given the time period; and a story which doesn’t pretend that everything is going to be flowers and bunnies for these guys. The ending is happy, but it’s a cautious happiness as our narrator, Rob, reflects on the difficulties of keeping their relationship secret. Highly recommended.