Family secrets and lack of communication lead lonely sixteen-year-old Alexander to commit an awful crime and his parents to question their decisions in Bill VanPatten’s psychological drama A LITTLE RAIN.

Family miscommunication and unhealthy obsessions lead to tragedy in Bill VanPatten’s thrilling novel A LITTLE RAIN. Set in a courtroom and composed of flashbacks told through three perspectives, the book tells the story of Alexander Chance, an intelligent and anxious sixteen-year-old, who falls in love with his classmate Timothy. Timothy helps Alexander accept his sexuality and come out of his shell. However, when Timothy begins helping another gay boy in their class, Alexander becomes extremely jealous. Meanwhile, Alexander’s parents, who divorced four years prior, are blind to their son’s struggles. The father, Jonathan, is also gay, and as part of the divorce agreement, he is not allowed to reveal this truth to Alexander. The mother, Morgan, became very religious after the divorce, and she avoids any conversation with her ex-husband. The book alternates between the perspectives of father, mother, and son to expose details that build a picture of the full story of what happened to land the family in court. Near the book’s conclusion, the narrative switches to that of the judge, who interviews the three family members and announces her analysis of Alexander’s crime, which is not revealed until the book’s end.

The book’s structure works to build suspense and maintain a sense of mystery, divulging truths only when necessary to the scene at hand. Each perspective character shows solely their own view of what happened and how their biases, emotions, and personal histories shape their point of view. Jonathan, for instance, while sitting in the courtroom, thinks back on his own journey of discovering his sexuality; his homophobic father and his time growing up in the AIDS crisis led him to hiding the fact that he was gay through adulthood, only to be caught cheating on his wife with a man. Both parents are wrapped up in their own problems, leaving Alexander to fend for himself. Alexander’s point-of-view chapters thus show his loneliness and vulnerability, expounding on his parents’ chapters to show the reality of cause and effect. Each of the three perspectives build on each other and reveal truths about each other to make the plot more compelling.

Because much of the book takes place in flashbacks, the narrative puzzles together secrets to draw the story forward to the present. Once a full image of the events leading up to the court case emerges, the shift to the judge’s perspective offers an intriguing twist. An astonishing revelation in the book’s final pages puts a compelling spin on the plot and characters that elevates its psychological drama. The book’s exposition focuses on internal conflict and interpersonal relationships, delving deep into what makes the three main characters tick. Personality-driven dialogue bolsters emotions in already tense scenes. The writing’s pace slows in times of solemnity or intimacy, but picks up in scenes with anger or action to further engage the reader’s emotions.

A psychological thriller with flashbacks that propel the story forward to the present, Bill VanPatten’s A LITTLE RAIN delves deep into what makes its characters tick.

~Aimee Jodoin for IndieReader

A young gay man participates in a court hearing for a mysterious crime in Bill VanPatten’s emotional and reflective novel A Little Rain, an engrossing work about how the impact of generational trauma and the strain of keeping secrets can break a family apart.

When Alex Chance is sixteen years old, he attempts suicide shortly before landing in front of the judge who will determine his fate. By the time he arrives in the courtroom, he’s in a dissociative fugue, clutching a paperback copy of Stephen King’s Misery and barely speaking. So what happened to lead Alex to this fraught moment? A Little Rain backtracks and tells Alex’s story, not only through his own eyes, but also from the perspective of his concerned divorced parents, Jonathan and Morgan Chance.

The Chance family lives in the fictional small rural town of Mañana, California, which is a fairly conservative place about a two-hour drive south of Sacramento. Alex has been struggling with his sexuality – he knows that he’s gay, but he’s too afraid to come out publicly, to his family or anyone else. Then, he meets Timothy: another young gay teenager who’s recently moved to Mañana from the Bay area.

Alex and Timothy embark on a whirlwind romance that seems to be proceeding perfectly, until another gay student wants to be taken under Timothy’s wing. Meanwhile, Alex’s father is hiding secrets from his own past, which is why Alex never learned the reason behind his parents’ separation. Alex’s mother is depressed about the state of her life, and struggling to find meaning while abusing pills and alcohol. Eventually, everything about Alex’s crime is revealed in a shocking twist that’s directly in line with the horror fiction Alex idolizes.

A Little Rain is a melancholy exploration of the unfortunate effects of discrimination and denial, particularly the anxiety, pressure, and stress of remaining in the closet and the fragility of concealing an essential component of your identity. Not only does Bill VanPatten explore how these secrets can ruin individual relationships, but he also expands his eye outward to include the horrors and fear of the AIDs crisis, the predatory nature of conversation therapy programs, and the way that members of the LGBTQI+ community are frequently physically attacked for being themselves. The book also addresses how this sorrow can sadly turn inward, into personally self-destructive violence as well as threats from within the community itself, for a story loaded with import and meaning that is conveyed with sensitivity, without being overly blunt or sentimental.

While some of the transitions to flashbacks can be somewhat abrupt and awkward, overall the novel makes impressive, dynamic use of the choice to begin at the end. There are a lot of issues these family members are hiding from one another, and denying to themselves. The book’s main metaphor – rain – is cleverly reflective of the family’s dynamic. Rain can of course indicate a foggy and tiring malaise, but it can also mean a new beginning, through growth or baptism. In other words, as Morgan tells her psychiatrist: “Our family’s greatest challenge is going to be to accept where we are and then consider what comes next.”

All told, A Little Rain is a stellar family drama with a compelling mix of contemporary issues, powerfully emotive writing, and twist-driven mystery.