In The Homeless Heart-throb Crystal Jeans has woven a tapestry of private lives, told with a bravery unknown by most writers and readers. And yet here it is: stark, funny, and thrillingly successful. It is a colourful mix of tales both surprising and familiar, a community of characters moving of their own accord through different decades, relationships and south-Wales streets. The book hops teasingly from one voice to the next with an ease that makes reading The Homeless Heart-throb an addictive pleasure.This is a work which can best be described as a carousel of connected short stories, but if we were to map out each characters relationship to one another, the web would be complex, becoming denser the more we read on. Some may find a pleasure in trying to pinpoint each of these connections as they are made, flicking back, checking names, counting years. But you can also sit back and enjoy the ride, allowing Crystal Jeans flowing words and careful ordering of the stories to do their work powerful regardless of whether you notice every detail. That being said, The Homeless Heart-throb is one of those rare books which can be enjoyed just as much on the second, or even third read, offering up new edges and undercurrents each time. It is worth noting that this is not a book for the faint-hearted. The reader gets a taste of the dirt and detail they should expect from Jeans daring prose from the very start, and stories such as My Bukowski soon enforce how uncomfortably close the narrative can get, bringing shock, perhaps disgust, and certainly a compulsion to read on. Other memorable stories include the amusing internal dialogue of The I Love You Jar, and the tragic reality shown in Piss on the Flames of caring for the elderly and infirm. Perhaps most powerful are the quieter stories, like Dogs Only, shedding light on the kind of lonely life which many people lead in our society. This book will have you chuckling through one paragraph and squirming through the next, pulling you in without the need for lengthy character development or lovable protagonist. Its strength is in the multitude of characters placed skilfully and at different distances in the orbit of the local homeless man, drunken and familiar to all who read. Though Crystal Jeans withholds the craved conclusions of each of these individual narratives, a catharsis is found in the eventual focus on Monsterberry Crush. This common character brings a gentle unity to the stories, providing us with a satisfaction at the end which is seldom found in a traditional short-story collection. There arent many obvious interactions between the tales in this book, and yet it has the atmosphere of a novel. Deftly spanning poverty, addiction, depression, alcohol abuse, infirmity and many more issues hidden behind far too many front doors, The Homeless Heart-throb is nevertheless not an overwhelmingly sad story. It is a truthful one: maintaining hope, a human optimism and resilience, often bringing laughter, and showing us the way real lives meander through the good and the bad.Kathryn TannIt is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgment should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Books Council of Wales. Gellir defnyddio'r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.
