Review: One More Soldier by Marie Sexton

Title: One More Soldier

Author: Marie Sexton

Publisher: Self-Published

Length: 60 Pages

Category: Gay Fiction

At a Glance: One More Soldier has always been, in my opinion, exemplary of what short storytelling can and should be, and it is every bit as poignant today as it was when I read it nearly eight years ago.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: 1970

Will has known Bran since he first taught him to swim, when Bran was eleven years old. But now, seven years later, Bran has returned from a year of hard work on a ranch outside of Houston and he is no longer the boy Will remembers. He is now eighteen, quite grown up, and making no secret of the fact that he’s interested in a sexual relationship with Will. At first, Will is horrified. He has a hard time forgetting the Bran he knew as a child, and given their seventeen-year age difference, he can’t understand why Bran is interested in him. But everything changes when he finds out that Bran has been drafted.

Will and Bran will have only two weeks together. But two weeks may be enough to change Will’s life.

Review: I first read Marie Sexton’s One More Soldier back in July of 2010, and I suppose it’s a testament to some sort of masochistic streak that made me read it again when I saw the author mention the novella in a recent Facebook post. While any number of earlier publications in the gay romance category don’t stand up to the test of time—progress has happened, experience has informed who we are, tastes have evolved and awareness has been heightened—this beautiful little tragedy remains timeless and holds its own against other stories of its length, and, in some cases, exceeds them. It has always been, in my opinion, exemplary of what short storytelling can and should be, and it is every bit as poignant today as it was nearly eight years ago.

Sexton set out to tell a story that would grab readers by the heart, and she succeeded in spades. One More Soldier begins in Houston in 1963, with Will Constantinescu as narrator. Will is a twenty-eight-year-old man—still single at a time when the median marriage age was somewhere in the early 20s—who gets the opportunity just one day of the week to meet other men like him. And while it’s not emotionally gratifying, it’s all that many gay men had at the time. Meeting a chatty eleven-year-old boy, Brannon Nelson, at the pool in their apartment complex one afternoon was not at all what Will was expecting, let alone had the patience for, when he went for a swim to unwind after a hard day’s work, but the outcome of that meeting and its impact plays out over the course of seven years of Will helping Bran with homework, being the male role model in his life…until one day Will notices, much to his discomfort and shame, that Bran is not a little boy anymore.

Sexton takes a risk on what could have so easily been an off-putting relationship between Will and Bran, but instead handles it with a dexterity owed entirely to the single event that so many young men Bran’s age were subjected to in 1970. Bran has been drafted to serve in Vietnam, and in the two weeks he has left before he leaves for boot camp going hand-in-hand with the uncertainty of war—whether Bran will return whole, if he even returns at all—he initiates the evolution of his relationship with Will. Bran wants to live every single moment he can in case it’s the only chance he ever gets to be true to who he is and experience what it’s like to love someone and be loved in return.

The cautious optimism in this story is breathtaking and only adds to the magnitude of its final impact. The full force of the fear, the love, the hope that upon Bran’s return Will might follow him to San Francisco where they can fight a new fight for equality cannot be understated—and neither can the ending, when that fight for pride and equality earns just one more soldier.

I loved this novella so much the first time I read it. Experiencing it again has only proved that love was not misplaced. Among Sexton’s body of work, so much of which I’ve read and enjoyed, this little story stands out as a favorite for several reasons, not the least of which is the author’s commitment to tell a difficult and realistic story and not pull any punches to spare the reader’s feelings. If you’re willing to read with your heart and have it broken for the sake of first love, I can’t recommend this book enough.

You can buy One More Soldier here:
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