Groomed by Jody Paschal

The global COVID-19 lockdowns were a tough time for millions around the globe, in no small part due to the confrontation many people had with whether or not they actually enjoyed living with themselves. One such person is Mylo Gunn, a fifty year-old Black American whose extra time for introspection butts up against the burgeoning #MeToo movement, exposing parts of himself he’d thought long buried.

Back when Mylo was seventeen, he met and fell and love with the beautiful twenty-five year-old April Barnes. While many of the people around him told him to be careful with her, nobody really tried to stop him from pursuing a relationship with a woman who was definitely not respecting the “half your age plus seven” years rule of dating suitability. Over time, April groomed Mylo into being the boyfriend, and later husband, she desired. Tho Mylo knew that the way she treated him was wrong, he didn’t know how to permanently extricate himself from a woman he thought he loved and, eventually, owed.

Fast-forward several decades, and Mylo is happily married to his second wife, Traci, as they ride out the lockdowns together. Looking for an athletic release when restrictions eventually ease, Mylo takes to open-air training with a group of guys he meets at a nearby track. When one of them encourages him to explore the feelings he’s started having regarding his first wife and their tumultuous relationship, he makes the first tentative steps to putting his story down on paper, little realizing the hidden connection that will later rock his world.

Told primarily from Mylo’s blunt first-person perspective, this is a fascinating look inside the mind of a Black man as he comes of age and finds himself tangling with a very toxic relationship. April is a nightmare, but young Mylo is too sexually enthralled to see the warning signs until it’s too late. She manipulates and abuses him in almost every way possible, leading him to act out in unhealthy manners, too. Luckily, he eventually figures out how to overcome his trauma and become a better person: not everyone is this slender book is as fortunate.

Based on a true story, this is absolutely the kind of book that makes you want to know more about the (in this case, rather mysterious) author. Mylo is wounded and crass and kind of a jerk sometimes, but still a decent person at heart. I do think that this book would have benefited from more stringent editing, particularly in the beginning where Mylo’s voice is first being established. While the roughness of the prose suits the story it tells, the suggestions as to how to encourage healthy relationships later on feel underdeveloped. Mr Ruffin, Traci and even Gia all feel underused despite being interesting characters who serve as touchstones for Mylo as he grapples with his past.

Overall, I’m impressed with Jody Paschal’s willingness to tackle this topic and drag these taboos kicking and screaming into the light. No twenty-five year-old of any gender has any business romantically or sexually pursuing a seventeen year-old, a truth which is plentifully underscored by this debut.

Groomed by Jody Paschal was published November 29 2024 by Paschal’s Prose and is available from all good booksellers, including