Through It Came Bright Colors

By Trebor Healey

A bittersweet story of love, loss, and the search for honesty.

Through It Came Bright Colors is the story of Neill Cullane, a closeted, conflicted 21-year-old who lives in two worlds, light years and a short drive of his beat-up VW bug apart. At home, he's the dutiful son of Frank and Grace, and devoted brother to Peter, whose battle with a cruel, disfiguring cancer pulls the Cullane family together, however reluctantly. But in the shadows of the San Francisco underworld, Neill finds release with his secret lover Vince Malone, a beautiful junkie/philosopher/thief whose burning desire for truth lights the path Neill always knew he'd travel. Through Vince, Neill learns about honesty and love and finds the courage to confront his family in the face of tragedy and loss.

As Neill watches his younger brother endure surgery after surgery, he is forced to confront his own physicality, and by extension, his long-dormant sexuality. It is as if through his brother's mortal struggle, Neill awakens to his own body and to the erotic nature of life itself, finding the courage to act on his sexual feelings with the seductive and enigmatic Vince. The troubled young men's secret affair inspires Neill to speak truths that lay silently, safely, beneath the Cullane family's carefully maintained surface, gradually stripping away layers of the polished, idealized façade. And the chance to live openly, honestly, inspires Neill to reveal the biggest truth of all on a journey of self-discovery that travels through the Bay Area suburbs to the San Francisco Tenderloin district, and finally, to the High Sierra wilderness where he and Vince face the truth about love, loss, and family.

Author Trebor Healey's rich, lyrical prose provides a unique and intimate look at one gay man's struggle to live openly and honestly, to love and to be loved, free from shame and guilt. Through It Came Bright Colors is a compelling saga of emotional, spiritual, and poetic depth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Signal 8 Press
• Release date: May 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9789881989574

Reviews for Through It Came Bright Colors

[blakefraina · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is not a love story. Nor do I think it was intended to be. It is, first and foremost, about the emotional growth of its narrator, Neill Cullane, a suburban youth confused about his sexuality and his role in his family. Although it might certainly, and rightfully, be viewed by the GLBT community as a "coming out" story, I think it is the latter theme, the exploration of family relationships, that ultimately distinguishes the book and makes it not only moving, but universal. Vince Malone, the charismatic, troubled street hood with whom Neill has his first sexual relationship, serves only as a vehicle through which Neill and the reader come to understand the intimate link between acceptance and love. Just as "Rain Man" is the story of Charlie Babbit, not his emotionally stunted brother Raymond, we know from the book's prophetic opening line that "Through it Came Bright Colors" is not a story of redemption for Vince. As with "Rain Man," the focus is on the character who has the ability to change and grow, Neill, and what his relationship with Vince teaches him about himself. While Neill is exploring his burgeoning sexuality, his family appears, on the surface, to be coming unravelled. His "golden boy" younger brother Peter is undergoing a series of increasingly more disfiguring cancer surgeries and his parents are having difficulty coping. It is in the juxtaposition of the scenes of Neill's family (in present day and flashback) as they tentatively, awkwardly, knit together, with flashbacks to the nightmarish erosion of Vince's homelife that the book exhibits its major strength. Ultimately, Neill realises that the true pleasure of love is in the giving of it, not the receiving of it. When someone accepts your love, they also accept you. Individual scenes between Neill and each member of his family (including his macho older brother Paul, who, like Vince, pushes him away) tenderly, sometimes painfully, illustrate this. At times the book has a bit of a cobbled together feel with some clumsy transitions between episodes in the Tenderloin with Vince, scenes of Neill's family life and the numerous flashbacks/reminiscences (with one particularly jarring shift of POV in a fairly short flashback sequence between Vince and a female psychologist that should have been either re-worked or expunged entirely). These things might easily have been remedied with the expansion of some sections (to smooth transitions) or perhaps by using a third person limited (as opposed to first person) narrative, but on the whole the book reads smoothly and coheres quite well. And these shortcomings are far outweighed by the carefully chosen language, rich with metaphor, and the overall emotional impact of story. All in all, I highly recommend this book.

[bembo_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is very moving story that covers a period of a few months in the life of Neill, a young closeted gay student. His brother is diagnosed with cancer, and during his brother’s treatment he meets Vince, a young gay punk who is also receiving treatment for cancer. The story concerns Neill’s handling of his brother’s illness and his own developing and traumatic relationship with Vince. It is very engaging novel, Neill and his brother enjoy a very close relationship, heightened by his illness. But it is the relationship between Neill and Vince that is particularly interesting, seemingly one sided, Neill’s love does not appear to be reciprocated in kind, and while Vince draws him in, he endures repeated rejection whenever he attempts to get too close; a very revealing and true to life predicament. I found this a very rewarding read.