Rating: 3* of five

The Book Description: Based on the film of the same name, Mulligans is a novel about a poignant family drama with a twist. Tyler, a straight college jock, brings his gay best friend Chase home to stay with his family for summer vacation. The Davidson family welcomes Chase with open arms, but as the summer progresses, so does an unexpected attraction. Stacey, Tyler's Mom, tries to hold on to her family while Tyler's dad Nathan struggles with his long-suppressed sexuality.

My Review: Mulligan, noun. usu. found in golfing context. A free shot sometimes given a golfer in informal play when the previous shot was poorly played.

What a mulligan Nathan gets. He has one whale of a gay kiss with his son's closeted best buddy, gets caught, and suddenly has a do-over at living life the gay way.

And there you have it, whole and entire, the point of the book and the movie. If that doesn't appeal to you, pass on. I liked it, and found it a bit discomfiting because I used to be a specialist in turning out straight married men. Never thought about their wives, and had I paused a moment to do so, I'd've thought "well, *you* ain't doin' what he needs so whose fault is that?"

I wasn't a very nice person in my thirties. I'd blame the booze and the drugs, but they didn't make me angry and mean.

So this story had that going for it, a deep familiarity of subject for reader; but oh dear oh dear the editing and copyediting. Oh the pain. "The Davidson's driveway." owowowow Unless one refers there to a Scottish clan chief's driveway, that's just careless. An entire star off for the clankers.

The other star comes off because, as much as this is a heartfelt and earnestly sincere story, it's not particularly new or freshly told. It's a movie script made into a novel, a very little bit fleshed out, and given something that a movie can't have which is context, backstory that doesn't really fit on screen.

It's a pleasant entertainment, and I don't grudge the fifteen bucks. But I'm not buyin' a case to give as Yule gifts, either. ( )

heartwarming story of innocense becoming mischievious under unusual circumstances. I really enjoyed this story. ( )

Mulligans, A Novel, is probably an example of when an adaptation from a movie script is better than the movie. And since the movie was good, you have an idea of how good the book is.

I liked Mulligans, the movie, but I felt real sorry for Chase, the young gay man who falls in love for his best friend's father and who, at the end of the movie, walks away from the happiness he found with that family. It was sad, even if probably true, my romantic heart was really weeping for that little boy, since the movie didn't give him any hope. In the book there is an important difference that is completely overlooked in the movie. From this moment on I will talk of the novel, not of the movie, and my remarks on the characters are with that in mind; if you like the story, mind that it's different from the movie, and that difference is centred around Chase's experience, past, present and future.

Chase is spending the summer in the lake house of his best friend and roommate Tyler. While Tyler treats Chase has his best friend and maybe as his little brother, Chase doesn't consider himself at the same level as Tyler; it's not only a financial issue, even if it can't be hide that Tyler has another and higher money availability than Chase; it's also the way Tyler approaches life: he is sure, confident and full frontal, it will probably arrive the time when Tyler will realize that life is not that easy, but not yet. Chase instead has already faced that moment; he knows that if he wants to succeed in life he has to do that all by himself, and to add question to question, he is also wondering on his sexuality. Better Chase deep inside knows that he is gay, but he is not confident, and so he has never had the courage to face that notion with himself, and consequently, with the outside world. Chase is in the closet not since he wants to hide, but since he has not the courage to open the doors of that closet. And from inside the closet, he admires Tyler, since he sees in him all that courage that he has not. The important distinction with the movie, is that, from Chase's point of view, before joining Tyler's family to the summer house, he was not hiding anything to his best friend, since he still hadn't admitted it with himself.

At the summer house, to Chase's admiration for his best friend Tyler's attitude towards life, it is now also added a little envy for his family; Chase has no real family, his dad is long time dead, and his mother is inexistent. Basically Chase is alone, and when he meets Tyler's family, mother, father and little sister, they all, as a whole, represent the forbidden fruit. True, he can also recognize that he is attracted by Tyler's father, from an aesthetical point of view, but at the same way he is attracted by Tyler: Chase has no problem to admit that he likes his best friend, and now his best friend's father, in a sexual way, but there is no way that he can consider something with them. It's far from his mind. And so, at first, if he has the idea to 'steal' something from Tyler, is not a specifically desire for a man, Nathan, Tyler's father, but more for the whole family, he wants for himself the happiness he sees.

From a sexual point of view, he is instead interested in Jarod, the African American boy who is Tyler's childhood friend. And this is another point where the novel totally diverges from the movie: there is not hint of sexual relationship between Chase and Jarod in the movie, Jarod is supportive to Chase only as a friend. Instead in the novel, Jarod is a main character, since it's due to him that Chase starts to question his own sexuality and desire, and his need to find a way out of the closet. Chase and Jarod have a budding relationship whose sudden abortion cause Chase to question what he wants in life. It forces also Chase to find the courage to come out, with Tyler, with Tyler's family, with the world. As a chain reaction, Nathan, Tyler's father, who for all his life has chosen the easy path to stay inside that closed, is suddenly faced with an alternative: he can take the same path as Chase. In a way, Nathan is taken advantage of Chase, like two men in a snowstorm, Nathan is following Chase's steps on the snow, and the harder job is the one that is making Chase. On this perspective, is right that neither Nathan or Stacey blame Chase for the breaking of their fake marriage happiness, no one forced Nathan to follow Chase's steps. If in the movie, the romantic hearts are disappointed by the failure of Chase and Nathan's love story, reading the book you realize that from the beginning it wasn't a love story; truth be told, if there is a real love story in the novel, it's the one between Chase and Jarod, and from this point of view, the novel gives more hope to Chase than the movie.

All in all this is probably the first time where a novel from a movie is better than the movie, and I highly recommend to whom liked the movie, but not as it ended, to read the novel, they will be not disappointed this time.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1928662196/?tag=elimyrevandra-20