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Neill Cullane is a closeted, conflicted 21-year-old who lives in two worlds: a San Francisco suburb where he's the middle-son of three young men, and, a short drive away in his beat-up VW bug, a seedy portion of the city's downtown. At home, he's the dutiful son of Frank and Grace, and devoted older brother to Peter - who is battling a cruel, disfiguring cancer - but in the city a chance encounter drags him into the orbit of Vince, a troubled, gregarious, very out gay transient. Moth to a flame, Neill is swept up and away by this secret lover, a beautiful junkie/philosopher/thief whose burning desire for truth lights a path Neill is destined to travel. Through Vince, Neill learns about honesty and love and finds the courage to confront his family in the face of tragedy and loss. Trebor Healey's multi-layered, lyrical prose illuminates a unique, intimate look at a young man's struggle to live openly and honestly, to love and to be loved, free from shame and guilt. It's a compelling family saga of rare emotional, spiritual, and poetic depth. Winner of the Ferro-Grumley Award for Best Novel in 2003, this new edition includes a foreword by Felice Picano (Like People in History).
"I read passages of this novel out loud again and again, absorbing the truth beneath its lyrical language. Trebor Healey understands the beauty and cruelty that spill forth when men dare to express love to one another. He holds up a magnifying glass to the human heart, and his gaze is unblinking." - K. M. Soehnlein
"Trebor Healey delivers coming out as apocalypse - tender, destructive, punk. He tore down a worn-out block of queer lit and built it back up. Sweet, sad, gritty, and real." - Michelle Tea
"Love hurts, hurt heals - that's the crystalline message at the core of Trebor Healey's complex, accomplished coming-of-age story about a cautiously queer suburban kid whose heart is unexpectedly squeezed hard by a young junkie's quicksilver mind and beautiful lean body. Neill's life-affirming attraction to life-weary Vince is doomed from this wise novel's very first line - but their fumbling struggle for physical love, emotional connection, and mutual maturity is mesmerizing. The searing implosion of their passion is no surprise, but it shimmers with the compelling honesty of real lives, while Healey's refreshingly original tale hums with the potency of poetry." - Richard Labonte
