REVIEW: 'The Hiding Place' by Wayne Mansfield
Title: The Hiding Place
Author: Wayne Mansfield
Published: July 1, 2010
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Cover Artist: Written Ink Designs
Genre: Dark Erotica; New Adult; Fantasy
Length: 56 Pages
Tags: Gay; M/M; Coming Out; Novelette; CW: Dub-Con, Bullying, Emotional Abuse, Gay Bashing, Attempted Teen Suicide Note: There are tags and content warning we chose not to disclose for sake of story arc.
About The Hiding Place
Like a million other young gay men, Bryan keeps his sexuality hidden because it’s safer that way. Yet other guys know he’s different -- they sense it, and make Bryan’s life pure hell. At home, things aren’t much better. He barely acknowledges his alcoholic father, and his mother has little time to spend with her family. So Bryan is alone, with no support, no shoulder to cry on.
Years of torture and torment, of name calling and humiliation, have taken their toll. Bryan does what he can to make new friends, but in trying to be something he’s not, he makes a huge mistake. Unable to cope with the repercussions, Bryan spends more and more time in a fantasy world he has created for himself. In this private world he is handsome, an object of desire. He is loved.
Is the hiding place as perfect as it seems? Or will Bryan go too deep and not be able to come out again?
4 HEART READ
REVIEW:
Partially autobiographical, Wayne Mansfield’s The Hiding Place is a heartfelt story about a teen-aged boy dealing with some truly horrific events. Living with both abuse and neglect are taking their toll, and hoping for good things in his future is the only thing keeping this young man going.
The story opens with Bryan as a high school senior being bullied and tormented by fellow students and even one of his teachers. While he gets a small show of support from a few peers, most are afraid to go against the “popular” boys and defend him.
Bryan has learned to make himself as invisible as possible in hopes of avoiding all attention.
Home isn’t much of a refuge for Bryan either, living with his alcoholic, abusive dad and his distant, neglectful mom. By the time Bryan realizes maybe his folks do care, he feels it’s too late to do any good. In Bryan’s case, the lack of concern and involvement from the adults in his life proves to be especially harmful.
Bryan finds ways to escape and create some peace for himself, but even those times are fraught with fear of being discovered and persecuted. This young man can’t find any way to be truly comfortable in his skin, and even his fantasy lovers abuse him.
The repeated abuse that Bryan suffers leaves him feeling unlovable and depressed, with no self-esteem. However, Bryan’s continually renewed optimistic outlook made me hopeful for his future. He always seems to be looking for something better to happen to him, whether it is devoted friends and affectionate lovers, success in school, or even just someone looking out for him, Bryan doesn’t give up.
What struck me most about Wayne Mansfield’s writing is the poetry and lyricism of some of the passages. Alternating between hopelessness, anger, and despair, the slivers of optimism that shine through and the haunting beauty of Bryan’s continual cry “to be loved” touched me deeply.
I enjoy the way the chapters alternate between the first and third person point-of-view, it adds to the intimacy of this story and makes it feel more personal.
In The Hiding Place Wayne Mansfield delivers a powerful message about the damage bullying does to teens. As he references in his author’s note, in addition to the issue of teen suicide, victims of bullies suffer from depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and many other lifelong issues. I personally hope that acceptance and tolerance for everyone, regardless of their preferences, continues to grow in our society and stories like Bryan’s will be just a distant memory.
A copy of The Hiding Place was provided to Kimmers’ Erotic Book Banter by Wayne Mansfield at no cost and with no expectations in return. We offer our fair and honest opinion on behalf of our readers.
The Being Me anthology is a collection of 16 well written stories by authors who write with passion and guts. Authors not afraid to delve into the sometimes murky and dark world of characters who find it difficult to accept themselves. All proceeds go to the Being Me Campaign!
Meet the Author
Wayne Mansfield was born and raised in rural Western Australia. As a boy, Wayne and his family moved around quite a bit and he attended two different kindergartens, three different primary schools and two high schools. He graduated from university as a primary school teacher and also has a Diploma in Counseling. He currently resides and works in Perth, Western Australia. The bulk of his books, novellas and stories have been published by JMS Books ("The King's Consort", "The Hiding Place", "Cool Blue", "Six Numbers" and "Changelings"). Always at the top of his English classes, Wayne first began as a published writer by contributing poems to the local community newspaper when he was in high school. Throughout university he wrote for fun, including "an awful Jackie Collins-type novel set in places I'd only read about or seen in movies". Some time after graduating he began writing short horror stories, a few of which were published in the types of magazines "...only purchased by the people who were published in them and their friends". He then progressed to writing gay erotica and was more successful . Most of his stories and novellas of the past six or seven years have combined his love of horror, science-fiction and fantasy with gay erotica / romance. Occasionally, he also writes more mainstream romance. He enjoys the books of Neil Gaiman, Michael Crichton and Clive Barker. Facebook; Goodreads; Tumblr; Amazon
For more from Wayne be sure and visit his website!
