[Spoiler alert: details about the stories & characters in TJ Klune’s books “The Extraordinaries” & “Flash Fire”]
I’m devouring the book “Flash Fire”, TJ Klune’s sequel to “The Extraordinaries”.
Once again, like with the first book, I cannot put it down because of living vicariously through the story, identifying very strongly — maybe too closely — with the main character. But there’s also the aspect of not being able to set the book aside for dozens of pages on end because I feel the need to get to the “good parts”: to the conflict resolutions, to the clarifications, to the situations in which everything is safe and/or going well. I need to be reassured that “everything will be alright”. Almost as if reading it in a book like this will give me hope that everything will be alright in real life, too…
With this book, “Flash Fire”, I’m feeling it even more than with the previous one, “The Extraordinaries”. And I think the key, the sticking point, is lies.
In the first book, “The Extraordinaries”, there were important things that were being kept from the main character Nick — e.g. his best friend Seth actively hiding from Nick the fact that he was the Extraordinary known as Pyro Storm — but there were a couple of aspects that made this “secret keeping” (or actual “lie telling”?) more acceptable, like legal “mitigating circumstances” in a courthouse. On the one hand, there were the “mitigating circumstances” of love & keeping loved ones safe: Seth had decided to use his extraordinary powers to keep his best friend Nick safe and had kept his alter ego as Pyro Storm hidden from Nick to protect him, so these secrets or lies on Seth’s part towards Nick were acts of love — or, at least, justified by love. On the other hand, it was so blatantly clear that Seth was Pyro Storm (in fact, the other close friends understood it on their own without Seth needing to tell them) and Nick is so irritatingly self-absorbed, that I couldn’t help but blame Nick for not seeing the truth all along.
In the sequel “Flash Fire”, instead, while Nick still has the irritating tendency to be quite self-absorbed (a tendency which, unfortunately, I recognize in myself), the secrets being kept from him are not obvious, they would require conversations, explanations, and sometimes straight-out confessions. Nick is being kept in the dark about extremely important truths about his own self, his deceased mother, his father, and his Extraordinary boyfriend/best friend Seth/Pyro Storm. The two people Nick loves the most and trusts the most — his father and his Extraordinary boyfriend/best friend Seth/Pyro Storm — are keeping huge secrets from him and even lying to him big time. Moreover, these two characters who in the first book seem to be wonderful heroes are turning out to have dark sides that feel painful and/or disappointing in this sequel.
I know this is just a story, these are just fiction books. But the topics addressed are very problematic and, I’m realizing, activating and almost triggering for me: secrets, lies by omission, flat-out lies, on the one hand; each individual’s freedom or privacy even in the closest and most intimate relationships, on the other.
When is it OK to keep something secret from a loved one? How far does our care or wish to keep the loved one safe justify our keeping a big secret from them? Or maybe even lying to them? How much is a “lie by omission” a flat-out lie? And how much, on the other hand, does our own privacy and freedom, or the privacy of a third party involved, allow us to keep an important secret from, or even lie to, someone who’s very close to us, someone with whom we’re very intimate?
These questions are extremely important, and even somewhat triggering, for me.
I have lied to someone who was very close & intimate to me. Twice. Almost twenty years ago, the first time, and almost ten years ago, the second. In both cases it was “lies by omission” and I did it with the persons who at the time were my romantic&sexual partners in a moment when our relationships were in crisis and/or close to the end. I felt terrible about it at the time, it felt so much “not like me”, and I swore to myself I would never do it again (my partners never found out so I didn’t have to make any promises to anyone else). The reasons I kept those things from those partners at the time was mainly my (and partly our) lack of tools to deal with such situations: I lacked partly the language, partly the concepts, and partly even the courage to have those difficult or awkward conversations. Now, ten or twenty years later, I think I would have the concepts, the language, and the courage to face such conversations. But, as a recent situation with the transgirl with whom I broke up and this book “Flash Fire” are reminding me, being completely, wholly honest about everything isn’t always easy, especially when there are third parties involved.
Where does one draw the line of one’s own privacy and/or freedom? Where does one draw the line of the third party’s privacy and/or freedom? How far can trust go? How far should trust go?
There’s a line in these books by TJ Klune in the “Extraordinaries” series that reads “Sometimes, we lie to the ones we love most to keep them safe”. Is that true? Is that acceptable?
I think these topics and these questions are so important, and even triggering, for me for two main reasons: childhood wounds that are getting reactivated, on the one hand; my being polyamorous and into consensual non-monogamy, on the other. And I guess the solution, at least partial, to these conundrums, is clear, open communication. Which doesn’t necessarily mean to tell each other everything always or everything right away: it means having conversations to agree on what we tell each other and what is OK for all parties involved to omit or “hide” or keep for themselves. That type of clarifying conversations and mutual agreements were the key factors lacking in the situations that caused my childhood wounds, in my “lies by omission” with my two ex-partners, in some upsetting or bothering situations with recent polyamorous partners (last summer with my European queer ex-lover and a month ago with the transwoman), and in the fictional stories by TJ Klune. In all these cases, the people involved didn’t have — or weren’t able to have — the necessary conversations to clarify the boundaries between “lies” and “personal freedom”, between “secrets” and “privacy”.
Maybe keeping this in mind, having processed this here now, I’ll be able to continue reading “Flash Fire” just enjoying it as a pleasant work of fiction and not letting it get too much under my skin…
The Little Prince and the Fox 