Big Burr, Kansas has been determined to be the most homophobic town in the U.S. by a nonprofit group. The group decides to send an LGBTQ task force to live and work in Big Burr, and see what inroads can be made in a two-year period.
As task force members try to adjust their lives—which weren’t necessarily all that well-adjusted wherever they came from—to life in Big Burr, they encounter the expected reactions and some surprising ones, but aren’t quite sure what it all will mean. And while the residents of Big Burr aren’t all that happy about the visitors to their town, it's not always for the reasons you’d expect.
Laskey’s stories focus both on task force members and town residents. There's the daughter of the task force leader, who craves a "regular" life instead of an "alternative" life in the spotlight; the mother grieving over her son's death, who finds comfort among the outcasts; the man who has done everything expected of him, who wants to step out of the closet but is afraid of the consequences; and a task force member who thought his relationship with his partner might get better with a change of scenery, only to find they are slipping into old habits; and many more.
Some of the stories are poignant and moving and some just didn't quite resonate for me, but while at first many of these characters seem like one-note stereotypes, Laskey provides complexity, emotion, and some depressing moments in a number of the stories. (One story in particular just knocked me for a loop.)
This book definitely made me think and Laskey is a talented storyteller. Ultimately, though, I don’t know what the message of the book was. I felt like there were a lot of incidents left dangling, and while the epilogue was used to bring closure it actually pointed out the moments I would’ve loved to have seen in the book, more tell than show.
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