Tales From the Bottom of My Sole: sexual adventuring in the melting pot of Toronto
28 Oct 2020.

by Drew Rowsome -

When we last met our hero Daniel Garneau, he was A Boy at the Edge of the World. In David Kingston Yeh's standalone sequel Tales from the Bottom of my Sole, Daniel has stepped off the edge and landed on his feet. He has a long term relationship with David, carries a flickering torch for his ex Marcus the performance artist, and is negotiating where love and sex connect and differ. But it's not just being monogamish he is struggling with, family and chosen family need to be brought together or kept separate. And when David's sister Luciana arrives after having transitioned to become Luke, gender fluidity becomes a question beyond sexuality. 

Daniel lives in a version of Toronto that is given a fairy-tale sheen. Not that it lacks for realism, it is just idealized to be the place that we all want it to be. Where race, all the letters in the LGBTQ spectrum, gender and even social status, are immaterial, possibilities instead of problems. David has still to come out to his mother before he leaves for a family reunion in Sicily, Daniel's family is still reeling from past tragedy and the more recent loss of his grandmother. There is a lot of plot, presented episodically, but it becomes a tale of acceptance rather than a soap opera. David's mother has many secrets in her past, and Daniel has to redefine his role in his family(s).

As someone who lived and lives in a similar milieu, Tales from the Bottom of My Sole offers many extra pleasures. The venues, the events, and many of the characters have all been part of the fabric of my life. It is a Toronto that is creating itself, not quite a New York City or a Berlin, but a place with its own magic. Suffused with nostalgia, the timeline - 2002 is mentioned as being four years ago, but the feeling is timeless contemporary - has been played with in order to make Yeh's points. I hope the specificity of Vazaleen and Buddies and Sneaky Dee's and Dufflet Pastries and The Cameron House and Patricia Wilson resonate enough to achieve the universality that Yeh is aiming for. For me, in the midst of a pandemic, it reads as heartfelt and heartbreaking, a paean to a scene that is often eclipsed by flashier ones.

It is not just the setting that is evocative. Tales from the Bottom of My Sole took me back to the innocent sweetness and trepidation of sexual exploration. Of happenstance and settling for comfortable. Or not. Of the revelation that everyone has a story, a back history, and a reason for making the choices that they do. And how fascinating and difficult that becomes when it intersects with one's own life. Yeh writes graphically and realistically about the mechanics of sex, but always in the context of what the physical sensations mean. And the consequences.

For a central character, Daniel is more a chronicler of other people's adventures than a participant. He is wide-eyed but not particularly shockable. There is a large cast of characters all with their own quirks, problems and quests. Yeh uses a narrative device that at first seems alienating but then becomes a shortcut to seeing through Daniel's eyes. With the crowds of artists, musicians, poets, fashion designers, perpetual students and hipsters, it is easy to forget that Daniel is busy with med school. As the novel builds to a climax, we learn through twin tragedies why Daniel is removed and cautious. And he achieves a revelation that will fuel what I sincerely hope will be a book to make Daniel's tales at least a trilogy.

Daniel's emotional reticence is contrasted with David's family's tendency towards Italian operatic. With Marcus adding an escalated melodramatic layer. But that's how it is at that time of life when one is forming who they are and what they want to be. And what they want to become. Daniel and David shop for fetish gear to wear to a burlesque show, for socks for Christmas gifts, for a third to explore with. That exploration, trying on of roles, is rendered in a delicate witty way that shows their opposing personalities and desires, but also how it works when they balance each other. Perched somewhere between a rom com and a telenovela, a loving snapshot of Toronto and of being twenty-something and searching, Tales from the Bottom of My Sole is touching and absorbing. There is an almost-perfect sock, or leather kilt, or lover(s), for everyone, you may just have to try on a few to find it.