Review: A Little Rain by Bill VanPatten

A young gay man participates in a court hearing for a mysterious crime in Bill VanPatten’s emotional and reflective novel A Little Rain, an engrossing work about how the impact of generational trauma and the strain of keeping secrets can break a family apart.

When Alex Chance is sixteen years old, he attempts suicide shortly before landing in front of the judge who will determine his fate. By the time he arrives in the courtroom, he’s in a dissociative fugue, clutching a paperback copy of Stephen King’s Misery and barely speaking. So what happened to lead Alex to this fraught moment? A Little Rain backtracks and tells Alex’s story, not only through his own eyes, but also from the perspective of his concerned divorced parents, Jonathan and Morgan Chance.

The Chance family lives in the fictional small rural town of Mañana, California, which is a fairly conservative place about a two-hour drive south of Sacramento. Alex has been struggling with his sexuality – he knows that he’s gay, but he’s too afraid to come out publicly, to his family or anyone else. Then, he meets Timothy: another young gay teenager who’s recently moved to Mañana from the Bay area.

Alex and Timothy embark on a whirlwind romance that seems to be proceeding perfectly, until another gay student wants to be taken under Timothy’s wing. Meanwhile, Alex’s father is hiding secrets from his own past, which is why Alex never learned the reason behind his parents’ separation. Alex’s mother is depressed about the state of her life, and struggling to find meaning while abusing pills and alcohol. Eventually, everything about Alex’s crime is revealed in a shocking twist that’s directly in line with the horror fiction Alex idolizes.

A Little Rain is a melancholy exploration of the unfortunate effects of discrimination and denial, particularly the anxiety, pressure, and stress of remaining in the closet and the fragility of concealing an essential component of your identity. Not only does Bill VanPatten explore how these secrets can ruin individual relationships, but he also expands his eye outward to include the horrors and fear of the AIDs crisis, the predatory nature of conversation therapy programs, and the way that members of the LGBTQI+ community are frequently physically attacked for being themselves. The book also addresses how this sorrow can sadly turn inward, into personally self-destructive violence as well as threats from within the community itself, for a story loaded with import and meaning that is conveyed with sensitivity, without being overly blunt or sentimental.

While some of the transitions to flashbacks can be somewhat abrupt and awkward, overall the novel makes impressive, dynamic use of the choice to begin at the end. There are a lot of issues these family members are hiding from one another, and denying to themselves. The book’s main metaphor – rain – is cleverly reflective of the family’s dynamic. Rain can of course indicate a foggy and tiring malaise, but it can also mean a new beginning, through growth or baptism. In other words, as Morgan tells her psychiatrist: “Our family’s greatest challenge is going to be to accept where we are and then consider what comes next.”

All told, A Little Rain is a stellar family drama with a compelling mix of contemporary issues, powerfully emotive writing, and twist-driven mystery.