B. Lorenzo Buckinchere
Feb 22, 2026
It is the end of the month, and time once again for our monthly review series. Our review for the month of February is “Beating against the current,” a novel by Kenneth Grimes. But first, here is a disclaimer.
The following review contains spoilers, so I recommend reading the book before reading this, or any review on the subject. Now without further ado, let’s begin.
Overview:
“Beating against the current” is a 2024 novel written by British author Kenneth Grimes as an independent publisher through Troubador. It features British professor Jay Winston, who lives in San Diego with his wife and daughters. Jay cheats on his wife Glenn with Eve, a colleague from work who later accuses him of sexual misconduct.
Plot:
In 2016, Jay Winston was a senior professor at a university in San Diego. He was married to a lawyer named Glenn. They were a middle-aged couple who lived in the suburbs, and together they had two school-aged daughters, Dani and Ashley.
All was not well in their marriage, but their troubles truly began in October of that year when Jay became involved with Yvette Sahin whom he affectionately called Eve.
Eve was a fellow lecturer at the university to which Jay was employed. Eve accused Jay of sexual misconduct after she awakened with guilt the morning after she cheated on her husband with Jay during a business trip to San Francisco.
Suspended from work, Jay became upset and tried to reason with Eve after the dean advised him to leave the campus immediately. Eve told Jay that she felt pressured into sleeping with him due to an upcoming promotion, and she felt it was the only way she could gain favor. Jay said he thought that they were truly in love, but the situation between them further escalated after colleagues said that they heard raised voices and saw Jay kissing Eve.
Jay left the campus and went home for the night. On the drive home, we get to learn two things about Jay. One, he keeps vodka shots under his car seat that he drinks whenever he is feeling stressed.
And two, that he can see ghosts. Actually just one ghost. The ghost of his brother, Robbie, who died in childhood under circumstances that will later be revealed.
The lines are somewhat blurred between whether Robbie is an actual ghost, or a figment of Jay’s imagination. But Jay always pictured him at the age he would have been in the present, and not as a child. Robbie usually appears to Jay as a warning and a guide whenever he is about to make a mistake, but Jay doesn’t always listen.
And as if Jay’s suspension wasn’t bad enough, his sister, Sophie, texted him all the way from England with news that his mother’s health was failing fast, and that she wanted him to come home.
He arrived home and confessed his affair to Glenn who got upset and threw him out of their house. He barely told her the news about his mother when she told him he could go to England and stay there for all she cared.
Eve’s husband arrived at their home shortly after Glenn left for work. He punched Jay out for sleeping with his wife. But before he left he said that he hoped Jay got fired like what happened to the last guy.
When Jay arrived in England, he stayed with Sophie who lived with her husband, Rhys. Jay and Rhys had never really gotten along. As such, he ended up assaulting Rhys one night during a bar fight, and ended up staying with his cousin Bailey instead.
Now Bailey was a lesbian clay potter who was often subjected to burglaries from a vagrant whom she had once taken in.
Jay and Bailey like each other a lot. She is the only relative whom he had ever truly gotten along with.
Sophie harbored resentment for the burden of being left to care for their aging parents on her own after the first time he left for America. And his parents blamed him for Robbie’s death.
While Jay was in England, Glenn called to tell him that San Diego police were looking for him because Eve reported him for harassment. She and her colleagues all said that he forcibly kissed her after the dean told him to leave the campus.
Jay told Glenn that the kiss was consensual from his perspective, and that he was wrong not to leave the campus when he was told to do so. He also told her that Eve’s husband showed up unannounced and assaulted him, and that he mentioned something about there being another guy.
Though he was still not off the hook for cheating on her, Glenn agreed to help Jay track down Eve’s other victims. While all this was happening, Jay and Sophie’s mother died. Thankfully, he did get to see her one last time while staying with Sophie.
He contacted Detective Hobart with the San Diego Police Department and explained the situation pertaining to him being away in England due to his mother’s death.
He agreed to return to America to be questioned by the police after the funeral. With Glenn being an attorney, he asked her if she could represent him. She ultimately advised against it and said she would ask some of her colleagues.
Upon his arrival at LAX, Jay was immediately taken into custody and subsequently questioned by Detective Hobart in the presence of an attorney, and then released under recognizance to appear for a later hearing.
Back home in San Diego, things were awkward at first. Glenn made him sleep in the guest house, then he was ultimately fired from the university. He promised Glenn that he would get help for his alcoholism, the third and most important actor in the tale on the night he slept with Eve. Glenn became more supportive after he agreed to join AA.
One night after a sobering visit with his attorney, Jay suffered hallucinations that triggered memories of his brother’s death. I am not going to spoil the single most important detail of the entire novel. Read the book.
His therapist helped him to recognize that his brother’s death was not his fault. This along with being able to weaken Eve’s case against him by tracking down her previous victim, one Professor Kukovich of whom she had also accused in order to get ahead at work, put Jay on a path towards redemption.
He eventually reconciled with Glenn and entered a master’s program that qualified him to become a youth councillor at a prison for juveniles.
Review:
This is a very unique novel, and is an easy read for people with ADHD. The fact that the novel discusses male issues by a male author from the perspective of a male protagonist was an immediate eye catcher for me.
It serves as a warning to cheating men everywhere, as to what could happen if you throw away something good for an opportunist who only wishes to get ahead.
Even if you are single, it is still a warning as to what could happen if you think it’s a good idea to carry on with trysts in the workplace where everyone is a shark, and only out for themselves.
And the fact that the novel is set during the #metoo era as Hillary Rodham Clinton was running for president against Donald Trump only served to further raise the stakes and drive the point home. It’s funny how in every feminist sob story, they always tell you about these “rapist pigs” who abuse their power at work.
And although men who abuse their power at work do exist, and women too (if we’re being honest), our hero was able to persevere against the current, defeat his inner demons that had haunted him for decades, change careers, and ultimately reconcile with his wife.
And that alone makes him a cut above the rest, because truly abusive people do not make amends. They only look for leverage to further their hold over their victim, and keep them trapped and too afraid to do anything about it.
It also helps that Grimes is one of my fellow San Diego local authors and the very first of my local authors whose work I have read. I do believe that this is Grimes’s debut novel, and it has done extraordinarily well by setting the precedent for many of his future works.
I give this one a whopping five out of five vodka shots, and I’ll see you on the next one.
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