Heims is a writer and teacher living in Paris. In this essay, he argues that Gilman considers that how people are valued is more important than what values they hold.

Whatever other factors may contribute to the quality of human relationships and to the cohesiveness of society, whether people share the same values or are in conflict over their values fundamentally influences the strength and the nature of all human association. In Blue Surge, Rebecca Gilman explores how social and moral values and how social and moral valuation influence the way individuals react to and interact with each other and, especially, how they value themselves and each other. Against the background of an effort by a group of fundamentalist Christians to shut down a massage parlor, which is really a front for a house of prostitution, Gilman presents the story of four people—two police officers and...