Three Fortunes in One Cookie Book

Do you know the phrase the walking wounded? When I first came out, and it went very poorly, I met a small group of mostly gay friends and we jokingly referred to ourselves as the walking wounded. We gathered at holidays with the rest of the people we knew had nowhere to go ( Christmas for Losers! we'd happily advertise), and generally held each other up a bit as we navigated what was likely to be one of the worst periods of our lives.

At the start of Three Fortunes in One Cookie, I was strongly reminded of that time in my life, and the people I knew at that point. Phillip Powell, and most of the people he meets within the first few chapters, are very much the walking wounded. Phillip's art is stuck in inspiration-free zones, his ability to hold a relationship together seems broken, and when his grandfather all but blackmails him with financial security into coming home to care for his crazy mother, there's not much holding him back. His best friend has moved away and married, his lover is leaving the country, and he's broke.

So, five years after he was ejected from his family, he's back in Mississippi.

Now, I could tell you all about the plot, but I won't. What struck me - what always strikes me about the writings of Cochrane Lambert (and Timothy James Beck, and Becky Cochrane, and Timothy Lambert, all of whom are incarnations in full or in part of the same author group) are the characters. Phillip isn't perfect by any stretch - he's human, and you can't help but feel for him, even when he's being a collossal ass. As the characters form around Phillip, you get the feeling that all of them, Phillip included, are coming out of the darker parts of their lives.

Does everyone end up healed and happy? Of course not - and that's something else I can praise of Cochrane Lambert's work, as always. If everything came up daisies for everyone, the authors would lose the sense of emotional reality these characters evoke. Some of them make some of the worst decisions ever, and some of the horrible is pretty final. But the rest of them - I'll say it again, though I'm beating it to death - the walking wounded keep walking, and they get a little better with every step.