I am thrilled to have discovered David Huddle - this book is a work of art. He captures human relationships every bit as beautifully and sadly as Richard Yates. Why is this author not more well known or well read? I can't wait to lose myself in another one of his books. ( )

Perhaps the most apt description of [Nothing Can Make Me Do This] would be that Huddle has assembled a collage. You begin by absorbing the separate components , then step back to look at the whole, whereupon you discover another level of correspondences and meaning. The voices are drawn from three generations of a family. Six perspectives in all, three men and three women: the grandparents (born, I think in the mid-30's), their closest lifelong friend, their daughter and son-in-law, and the grand-daughter. The relationships described extend beyond simple man/woman into grandparents with their grandchildren, mothers and daughters, brothers. One of the great achievements is that what could be bewildering is put forward in small vignettes that work in harmony: brothers traipsing about a neighborhood at night spying through windows, a boy and a priest (not what you think), a childless older man discovering the joy of helping a child, a woman discovering she can't live with a man who can't care about a dog she loves - the revelations are like fiery peppercorns or sweetness bursting in your mouth. It works because the underlying purpose is steady. Boundaries, trespass, barriers -- might be useful descriptive words - not only the barriers that individuals put up between each other, and that couples use to keep others out, but those of knowing and not knowing, and the inevitability, if you let down your guard of revelation that leads to change: "The Eve Collins theory of self-discovery is that you sometimes just unintentionally break through to what you need to know." Trespass too, serves to describe the events literal and internal that lead to revelation. The granddaughter deciding which room in her grandparents empty house would be the right one in which to lose her virginity. Or the grandfather, when a young professor at his first college campus discovering that a place he likes to walk to and has come to consider 'his' is used once a year for a rite of passage ceremony by the students, one he finds so distasteful and upsetting that he is willing to spend hours cleaning up after it. There is also a close focus on sexuality and the boundaries, barriers and trespasses that define a marriage as well as friendships, and family relationships. So many ways to be, both bewildering and reassuring. I admire how different each of the voices are, and how I was eager to read about all of them - the most successful for me were the grandfather, grand-daughter, and Bill the son-in-law, but all of the characters had 'moments'.
Highly recommended! ****1/2 ( )