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"A rich and complex coming of age tale that manages to be brave and vulnerable at once. Grimsley captures the poetry of everyday life, reminding us that each of our lives is extraordinary, if only because of our capacity to love."— New York Times best-selling author, Tayari Jones
"This book made me start work late, made me miss sleep. I would read up to the edge of my free time and then some, and still feel compelled to sit with it after, and think, and give myself a buffer back to real life. This book disrupted my life in all the best ways. I wonder how much internalized homophobia a book like this would have saved me. And if it saved me that much, how much it might've saved others." —Rafi Mittlefehldt, author of What Makes Us
"Dove in the Belly is Jim Grimsley at his finest. A beautiful book, which somehow captures all the complexity and confusion of first love and grief- sorrow and courage—with the simplicity, clarity, and sincerity, of a masterful writer." Justin Torres, author of We the Animals
At the University of North Carolina, Ronny's made some friends, kept his secrets, survived dorm life, and protected his heart.
Until he can't. Ben is in some ways Ronny's opposite; he's big and solid where Ronny is small and slight. Ben's at UNC on a football scholarship. Confident, with that easy jock swagger, and an explosive temper always simmering. He has a steady stream of girlfriends. Ben's aware of the overwhelming effect he has on Ronny. It's like a sensation of power. So easy to tease Ronny, throw playful insults, but it all feels somehow…loaded.
Meanwhile Ronny's mother has moved to Vegas with her latest husband. And Ben's mother is fighting advanced cancer. A bubble forms around the two, as surprising to Ronny as it is to Ben. Within it their connection ignites physically and emotionally. But what will happen when the tensile strength of a bubble is tested? When the rest of life intervenes?
The Dove in the Belly is about the electric, dangerous, sometimes tender but always powerful attraction between two very different boys. But it's also about the full cycles of love and life and how they open in us the twinned capacities for grief and joy.
Quote: TEN stars! Just finished this, and I don’t know how to put my thoughts into words. This book grabbed me and never let me go.
Jim Grimsley pulls off an outrageous magic trick with “The Dove in the Belly.” Gay college kid befriends big, beefy straight jock with hints of danger: the stuff of thousands of books, shows, movies, and, yup, “adult movies” and fantasies. But right from the start I felt I was with two main characters who were very “real,” very compelling. Technically, Ronny, the gay kid, is the MC, but Ben, the football player, he comes to us as more than just a tired trope, more than just the obscure object of our desires - the movie is referenced in that context. In fact, I cared just as much, hoped just as much, believed just as much, for Ben, than one might normally care and than I thought I would.
There was electricity in this book, and there WAS danger, and I stayed wound up, keyed-up, the whole way through this incredible, beautiful, powerful journey. And the ending was so different and so much better than what I expected. No spoilers from me, but I’ll just say, I can breathe again; I didn’t realize how much I had been holding my breath. And now that I can breathe again, I can tell you, this book will stay with me for a very long time to come.
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