When I say that I’m a fan of the stories and novels authored by Christopher Meeks, I’m not just talking the talk. I’ve read at least ten of his books.  Based upon this experience, when I begin one of his new books, I expect that I’ll be treated to characters that are artfully drawn, flawed in compellingly human ways that are earned and that enlighten. For me to say, however, that his latest, Joni Paredes, a novella, did not disappoint would be serious understatement. Joni Paredes displays Mr. Meeks’s strongest writing to date, evocative and powerful. Funny, tender, and laced with Meeks’s trademark wit and sense of irony.  This is a poignant story of not one but of two at-risk relationships told beautifully.

So who is Joni Paredes, the protagonist of this adventure?  She is Latina, she tells her paramour of this story, Stewart. She is of Mexican and Argentine descent. Interestingly, and not coincidently I’m sure, in Spanish paredes means “wall.” In Joni’s case, her wall is metaphorical.  Her husband’s suicide—

blowing his brains out, literally, with a shotgun while lying on the marital bed—was about as grim as one can imagine. That Meeks imagines it in all of its gory detail is not gratuitous. It is a scene necessary to pierce Joni’s psyche, to lift slightly at least the veil of her self-preservation.  Hence with men Joni has walled herself off from intimacy, successively dating men just a few times, enjoying sexual release, then dropping, them ghosting them in current parlance. And all the while on a most intimate basis, Joni is walled off by her daughter, Athena.  

Walling off men has been Joni’s modus operandi until she meets Stewart, at her Athena’s wedding, which heralds an auspicious beginning. Stewart insists that he and Joni take their time, get to know one another when on an early date Joni propositions him.  And when they do have sex, floodgates and torrents of passion Joni never knew existed are opened. In the past, we learn, after the requisite ten minutes of sex, Joni has come a couple of times, leaving her well satisfied.  But with Stewart, Joni has five, six, seven hours of joyous coitus.  Stewart is thoughtful, considerate, and his friends are fond of Joni. Joni’s daughter and her son-in-law enthusiastically favor the match.

I would expect a reader to ask, as I did, is Joni Paredes going to be a story patterned on Nietzsche’s eternal return or will her nascent relationship with Stewart be one of renewal? And what of her relationship with Athena? These two relationships, at-risk as I’ve described them, are rich complications with uncertain outcomes. The story of Joni and Stewart unfolds eventually and naturally—as I said, the verisimilitude of Meeks’s characters and their situations in life are earned—while the parallel story of Joni and Athena  begins on Athena’s wedding day with fireworks and painful mother-daughter tension exquisitely related with superb prose. Here’s a taste of the emotional drama.

“Athena pulled back and gazed, now aghast, at her mother. ‘You’re wearing that dress today?’

Joni frowned. ‘What’s wrong? It’s a nice dress—a dress worthy of my only child.’

‘It’s red! As usual you’re trying to take away my spotlight.’”

As usual?  As Joni has walled off intimacy with men, Athena has walled off her mother.  Why?  Does it have something to do with the suicide, the memory of which hangs over Joni like a sword of Damocles. Does Athena blame Joni for the horrible end of her stepfather’s life? 

Shortly after the criticism of her mother’s wedding-day dress we learn that Athena and her new husband will move away from Pasadena, away from Joni, to Seattle.  She has lost her husband.  Now will Joni be truly alone. Athena’s moving-away plan significantly raises the stakes with the relationship with Stewart. 

As a skillful harbor pilot can maneuver any large ship into a cramped port, Meeks navigates the conclusion of the story of the relationships in the lives of Joni Parades into a recognizable and understandable berth, but not before revealing a final and shocking key to Joni’s extraordinary persona. 

Bravo, Christopher Meeks. When will we have more?

Christopher Meeks teaches or has taught English and creative writing at the University of Southern California, CalArts, UCLA Extension, and Santa Monica College. He is the author of thirteen previously published works of fiction: novels, novellas, stories, and story collections. He is a playwright with credit for three produced and plays. He has garnered more significant awards for his writing than I can detail here.  To mention just one, his novel Chords of War, co-authored with Samuel Gonzales, Jr. won a Bronze Award for book of the year in 2018 by Forward Reviews