The novel To Nourish and Consume is the story of three former friends, who reunite unexpectedly in the small resort town on Lake Michigan they had known as children.
For the main character, Brian Falk, coming home brings him face-to-face with a past that he has spent most of his adult life running from, especially his teenage involvement in a complicated triangle wherein desire for passion and love crossed both class and gender lines. Central to this triangle are Jaqueline Morgan, a coquettish and manipulative woman whose hold on Brian has withstood the tests of time and distance, and Dabney Dryden, Brian’s childhood best friend whose easy charm is balanced by a dangerously explosive personality.
The end of Brian’s association with these two characters came about as “the violent explosions between two young men predicated by love for one another, and for the same woman,” and now the three of them must confront the living emotions left over from their past.
Named after Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73, this is a story about fleeting youth and the not-so-fleeting impacts our childhood experiences have on our adult lives. Brian’s memories of summers spent on the lake with Jackie and Dabney are fraught with class tension, romantic conflict, and youthful hubris. Brian’s eventual self-discovery comes in the form of breaking certain ties to the past, while at the same time recognizing the role his past has played in sculpting his current life.
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