Crashing Upwards

The romance novelist S.C. Wynne published her Lambda award-winning novel Crashing Upwards in 2018. A gay romance that falls into the “forced proximity” subgenre, the novel, the novel traces the relationship between the almost spoiled son of a conservative politician and a down on his luck bike messenger. The couple must overcome obstacles that include an inauspicious meeting, the interference of family members, the reluctance of the independently minded biker to get seriously involved, and the fact that the politician’s son is still closeted.

Twenty-three-year-old Sam Foster is the son of conservative Senator Larry Foster. The Fosters are enormously wealthy, so Sam has grown up in privilege: he works for his father and lives in a cottage on the family estate. Nevertheless, despite his advantages, Sam has never lost his ability to empathize or care about others, seeing the good in most people that he meets. He spends much of his free time doing charity work, having a caretaker personality that has prevented him from becoming overly spoiled.

The major source of conflict in Sam’s life is his dad. Because Senator Foster is a Republican, he wants Sam to hide his sexuality and stay in the closet. Ostensibly, just for the election that is coming up in the year the novel takes place – but preferably, forever. The Senator cares more about alienating his donors than the happiness of his son. Selflessly, Sam has so far acceded to his father’s wishes and hasn’t pushed back much beyond a half-hearted attempt to convince his father to let him come out. On Sam’s side of the issue is his twin sister, who wants Sam to live his own life regardless of what Senator Foster might think.



At the Senator’s office, a bike courier often delivers important paperwork. One courier who has really caught Sam’s eye is twenty-four-year-old Harper Jones. Although he is polite, Harper doesn’t seem very friendly, so Sam has never worked up the nerve to talk to the handsome stranger.

As the novel opens, however, a distracted Sam hits a bike messenger with his car. And would you believe it – it happens to be the very same biker whom Sam has been crushing on all this time!

The accident isn’t a terrible one, but Harper’s leg is injured badly enough that he won’t be able to do his job for a few months. Sam immediately owns up to being completely responsible for the damage to Harper’s bike and leg, paying all of the hospital and repair bills without question. However, this isn’t enough to solve Harper’s current problems – the courier has been living hand to mouth, just barely scraping up enough money to cover his rent, so his recovery will be financially ruinous.



After finding this out, compassionate and thoughtful – though sometimes rather pushy – Sam proposes to move into Harper’s mice-infested apartment to take care of Harper until he can deliver packages again. Harper is deeply reluctant to agree to this: he has been fully independent since he was sixteen years old, and he refuses to grow dependent on Sam or to be beholden to Sam and his money.

Still, Harper is completely alone in the world, having no one else who could take care of him while he’s recovering, so Sam gets his way after all.

The two men start an odd-couple style of relationship, as Sam genuinely tries to get past Harper’s walls and defenses, and Harper slowly opens up and explains to Sam why he has trust and intimacy issues. At the same time, they grow increasingly attracted to each other until they can resist each other’s allure no longer. Readers describe the novel’s sex scenes as “steamy.”



Sam’s father is horrified by all of this. When Harper was still in the hospital, Senator Foster accused him of throwing himself under Sam’s car on purpose in order to run some kind of scam. Now that Sam is living on Harper’s couch, the Senator is constantly telling Sam to steer clear of the bike messenger who can’t possibly be up to any good. When this direct influence fails to separate Sam from Harper, Senator Foster starts to manipulate events at a slight remove – a plotline that critics point to as weak. Readers of the novel are puzzled at the way politics are handled – for some reason, there’s a fear that Senator Foster’s Democratic opponent would use Sam’s coming out in negative ads (which doesn’t jibe with the Democratic party platform or the views of its base).

In the end, Senator Foster realizes how wrong he has been in his relationship with Sam, and he apologizes while fixing the confusion that he has created. Sam and Harper see that they are deeply in love with one another, and get the happy ending they wished for.