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The Paternity Test
by Michael Lowenthal"Having a baby to save a marriage--it's the oldest of cliches. But what if the marriage at risk is a gay one, and having a baby involves a surrogate mother? Pat Faunce is a faltering romantic, a former poetry major who now writes textbooks. A decade into his relationship with Stu, an airline pilot from a fraught Jewish family, he fears he's losing Stu to other men--and losing himself in their "no rules" arrangement. Yearning for a baby and a deeper commitment, he pressures Stu to move from Manhattan to Cape Cod, to the cottage where Pat spent boyhood summers. As they struggle to adjust to their new life, they enlist a surrogate: Debora, a charismatic Brazilian immigrant, married to Danny, an American home rebuilder. Gradually, Pat and Debora bond, drawn together by the logistics of getting pregnant and away from their spouses. Pat gets caught between loyalties--to Stu and his family, to Debora, to his own potent desires--and wonders: is he fit to be a father? In one of the first novels to explore the experience of gay men seeking a child through surrogacy, Michael Lowenthal writes passionately about marriages and mistakes, loyalty and betrayal, and about how our drive to create families can complicate the ones we already have. The Paternity Test is a provocative look at the new "family values. "--Publisher's description.
The Same Embrace
by Michael LowenthalThe endless conflict between sameness and difference is at the heart of Michael Lowenthal's novel The Same Embrace, in which identical twins Jacob and Jonathan battle themselves and one another to become individuals even as they are inextricably linked through genes, family, and history. The conflict of brother against brother, biblical in its resonance yet filled with contemporary image and idiom, is also the grounding that allows Lowenthal to write about his main concern: how humans must create themselves as individuals while remaining part of a larger social fabric. Just as Jacob and Jonathan wrestle with one another over questions of sexuality and religion, The Same Embrace embodies two distinct and not usually conflated genres: the novel of gay identity and the Jewish family novel. Like the brothers' move towards reconciliation, one of the novel's strengths--along with its understanding of the human heart--is its ability to join these themes into a unified, extremely satisfying entirety that both moves and enlightens us. The shadow of the Holocaust looms over this affecting first novel, a tale of identical twins who must come to terms with their peculiar bond and its limits. Jacob Rosenbaum, openly gay and mourning the recent death of his best friend, travels from Boston to Israel in order to persuade his brother Jonathan, newly and fervently orthodox, to leave the yeshiva where he is studying and return to the U.S. More than religious and sexual differences keep the brothers apart. Both need to overcome the legacy of their stern grandfather, who pitted them against each other when they were boys Jacob's struggle to reconcile with his brother is as much an account of a family history of estrangement and secrets as it is about the contradictions of being twins: two people, physically alike, so close they dream the same dreams, who simultaneously long to assert their individuality and return to their comforting singular identity.
Never Say I: Sexuality and the First Person in Colette, Gide, and Proust
by Michael LuceyNever Say I reveals the centrality of representations of sexuality, and particularly same-sex sexual relations, to the evolution of literary prose forms in twentieth-century France. Rethinking the social and literary innovation of works by Marcel Proust, Andr Gide, and Colette, Michael Lucey considers these writers' production of a first-person voice in which matters related to same-sex sexuality could be spoken of. He shows how their writings and careers took on political and social import in part through the contribution they made to the representation of social groups that were only slowly coming to be publicly recognized. Proust, Gide, and Colette helped create persons and characters, points of view, and narrative practices from which to speak and write about, for, or as people attracted to those of the same sex. Considering novels along with journalism, theatrical performances, correspondences, and face-to-face encounters, Lucey focuses on the interlocking social and formal dimensions of using the first person. He argues for understanding the first person not just as a grammatical category but also as a collectively produced social artifact, demonstrating that Proust's, Gide's, and Colette's use of the first person involved a social process of assuming the authority to speak about certain issues, or on behalf of certain people. Lucey reveals these three writers as both practitioners and theorists of the first person; he traces how, when they figured themselves or other first persons in certain statements regarding same-sex identity, they self-consciously called attention to the creative effort involved in doing so.
Someone: The Pragmatics of Misfit Sexualities, from Colette to Hervé Guibert
by Michael LuceyImagine trying to tell someone something about yourself and your desires for which there are no words. What if the mere attempt at expression was bound to misfire, to efface the truth of that ineluctable something? In Someone, Michael Lucey considers characters from twentieth-century French literary texts whose sexual forms prove difficult to conceptualize or represent. The characters expressing these “misfit” sexualities gravitate towards same-sex encounters. Yet they differ in subtle but crucial ways from mainstream gay or lesbian identities—whether because of a discordance between gender identity and sexuality, practices specific to a certain place and time, or the fleetingness or non-exclusivity of desire. Investigating works by Simone de Beauvoir, Colette, Jean Genet, and others, Lucey probes both the range of same-sex sexual forms in twentieth-century France and the innovative literary language authors have used to explore these evanescent forms. As a portrait of fragile sexualities that involve awkward and delicate maneuvers and modes of articulation, Someone reveals just how messy the ways in which we experience and perceive sexuality remain, even to ourselves.
The End of Eddy: A Novel
by Michael Lucey Édouard Louis<P>An autobiographical novel about growing up gay in a working-class town in Picardy. <P>“Every morning in the bathroom I would repeat the same phrase to myself over and over again . . . Today I’m really gonna be a tough guy.” <P>Growing up in a poor village in northern France, all Eddy Bellegueule wanted was to be a man in the eyes of his family and neighbors. But from childhood, he was different—“girlish,” intellectually precocious, and attracted to other men. <P>Already translated into twenty languages, The End of Eddy captures the violence and desperation of life in a French factory town. It is also a sensitive, universal portrait of boyhood and sexual awakening. <P>Like Karl Ove Knausgaard or Edmund White, Édouard Louis writes from his own undisguised experience, but he writes with an openness and a compassionate intelligence that are all his own. The result—a critical and popular triumph—has made him the most celebrated French writer of his generation.
Gay Travels in the Muslim World
by Michael LuongoTravel beyond the fear and paranoia of 9-11 to experience Muslim cultureGay Travels in the Muslim World journeys where other gay travel books fear to tread-Muslim countries. This thought-provoking book tells both Muslim and non-Muslim gay men's stories of traveling in the Middle East during these difficult political times. The true, very personal tales reveal how gay men celebrate their lives and meetings with local men, including a gay soldier's story of his tour of duty in Iraq. Insightful and at times sexy, this intelligent book goes beyond 9-11 and the present political and cultural divides to illustrate the real experiences of gay men in trouble zones-in an effort to seek peace for all.After the collapse of the Twin Towers, fears about terrorism and Muslim culture went hand in hand. Gay Travels in the Muslim World enters the current war zones to bring real and very personal stories of gay men who live and travel in these dangerous areas. This book challenges readers' preconceptions and assumptions about both homosexuality and being Muslim, while showing the wide range of experiences-good and bad-about the regions as well as the differences in attitudes and beliefs. Excerpts from Gay Travels in the Muslim World:From "I Want Your Eyes" by David StevensMen by themselves are rare. I pass a handsome Omani man sitting on the Corniche wall with a cigarette between his long brown fingers. He wears his colourful cuma cap at a jaunty angle and his mustard-coloured dishdasha has risen up to reveal tantalizingly hairy calves. I note the carefully made holes in his ears-not in his ear lobes but deep inside the cartilages-a pre-Islamic custom still practiced on some male babies to ward off evil spirits. I decide it suits him.From "It All Began with Mamadou" by Jay DavidsonDrawing definitive conclusions about a society after living here for a little more than a year is not a wise, safe, or responsible action on my part. If a society's culture is a mosaic of thousands of little tiles, then I like to think that what I have been able to piece together has been a tableau in which certain aspects have become discernable, some are a little less clear, and others remain in a way that I will never see as whole and comprehensible.From "A Market and a Mosque" by Martin ForemanSylhet, Bangladesh: It's eight o'clock in the evening and Tarique and Paritosh are taking me out to look at the cruising spots. Until I flew in here this afternoon, all I knew of the provincial city and the surrounding area was that it was where most of the Bangladeshis in the UK come from-and since most of the Bangladeshis in the UK live in my home borough of Tower Hamlets, I feel a kind of affinity with the place. Whether or not Sylhet feels an affinity with me is a different matter.From "Work In Progress: Notes From A Continuing Journey of Manufacturing Dissent" by Parvez SharmaIn the construction of the image and life of the "queer" Muslim is also the awareness of the not so well known fact that a sexual revolution of immense proportions came to the earliest Muslims, some 1,300 years before the West had even thought about it. This promise of equal gender rights and, unlike in the Bible, the stress on sex as not just reproduction but also enjoyment within the confines of marriage has all but been lost in the rhetoric spewing from loudspeakers perched on Masjid's-or mosques-in Riyadh, Marrakech and Islamabad. The same Islam that has for centuries not only tolerated but also openly celebrated homosexuality is, today, used to justify a state-sanctioned pogrom against gay men in Egypt-America's "enlightened" friend in the Middle East.Gay Travels in the Muslim World is a refreshing, well written look a
Flyboys and Cowboys
by Michael McclellandThe year is 1930 and pilot Guy Harris is making his way through Central America -- and its men -- on his way to Venezuela for a job. His one rule: no mixing business with pleasure. Suddenly Guy finds himself struggling to stick to that rule when he gets a lucrative job offer from a cowboy named McCracken, who seems to want Guy for more than just his piloting skills.NOTE: This story appears in the anthology, Cowboy Roundup edited by Drew Hunt, available in e-book and print formats.
Last Car to Annwn Station
by Michael Merriam"The fare is ten cents, miss." Mae Malveaux, an attorney with Minneapolis Child Protective Services, is burnt-out, tired and frustrated. Passing on an invite from Jill, her flirtatious coworker, Mae just wants a quiet night in. Leaving the office late, she's surprised to find the Heritage Line streetcars up and running and hops aboard, eager for a quick trip home. But this is no ordinary streetcar. Death is one of its riders, and Mae is thrust into Annwn, a realm of magic and danger. "Your transfer, miss. You'll need that." Mae's life is turned upside down as human and fae worlds collide. Her budding relationship with Jill takes a perilous turn when they are hunted by mythical beasts, and Mae is drawn into a deadly power struggle. With Jill at her side, Mae must straddle both worlds and fight a war she barely comprehends, for not only does the fate of Annwn rest in her hands, but the lives of both a human and fae child...81,000 words
Sympathy for the Devil: Four Decades of Friendship with Gore Vidal
by Michael MewshawA generous, entertaining, intimate look at Gore Vidal, a man who prided himself on being difficult to knowDetached and ironic; a master of the pointed put-down, of the cutting quip; enigmatic, impossible to truly know: This is the calcified, public image of Gore Vidal—one the man himself was fond of reinforcing. "I'm exactly as I appear," he once said of himself. "There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water." Michael Mewshaw's Sympathy for the Devil, a memoir of his friendship with the stubbornly iconoclastic public intellectual, is a welcome corrective to this tired received wisdom. A complex, nuanced portrait emerges in these pages—and while "Gore" can indeed be brusque, standoffish, even cruel, Mewshaw also catches him in more vulnerable moments. The Gore Vidal the reader comes to know here is generous and supportive to younger, less successful writers; he is also, especially toward the end of his life, disappointed, even lonely. Sparkling, often hilarious, and filled with spicy anecdotes about expat life in Italy, Sympathy for the Devil is an irresistible inside account of a man who was himself—faults and all—impossible to resist. As enlightening as it is entertaining, it offers a unique look at a figure many only think they know.
A Small Boy and Others: Imitation and Initiation in American Culture from Henry James to Andy Warhol
by Michael MoonIn A Small Boy and Others, Michael Moon makes a vital contributon to our understanding of the dynamics of sexuality and identity in modern American culture. He explores a wide array of literary, artistic, and theatrical performances ranging from the memoirs of Henry James and the dances of Vaslav Nijinsky to the Pop paintings of Andy Warhol and such films as Midnight Cowboy, Blue Velvet, and Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures.Moon illuminates the careers of James, Warhol, and others by examining the imaginative investments of their protogay childhoods in their work in ways that enable new, more complex cultural readings. He deftly engages notions of initiation and desire not within the traditional framework of "sexual orientation" but through the disorienting effects of imitation. Whether invoking the artist Joseph Cornell's early fascination with the Great Houdini or turning his attention to James's self-described "initiation into style" at the age of twelve--when he first encountered the homoerotic imagery in paintings by David, Géricault, and Girodet--Moon reveals how the works of these artists emerge from an engagement that is obsessive to the point of "queerness."Rich in historical detail and insistent in its melding of the recent with the remote, the literary with the visual, the popular with the elite, A Small Boy and Others presents a hitherto unimagined tradition of brave and outrageous queer invention. This long-awaited contribution from Moon will be welcomed by all those engaged in literary, cultural, and queer studies.
Darger’s Resources
by Michael MoonHenry Darger (1892-1973) was a hospital janitor and an immensely productive artist and writer. In the first decades of adulthood, he wrote a 15,145-page fictional epic, In the Realms of the Unreal. He spent much of the rest of his long life illustrating it in astonishing drawings and watercolors. In Darger's unfolding saga, pastoral utopias are repeatedly savaged by extreme violence directed at children, particularly girls. Given his disturbing subject matter and the extreme solitude he maintained throughout his life, critics have characterized Darger as eccentric, deranged, and even dangerous, as an outsider artist compelled to create a fantasy universe. Contesting such pathologizing interpretations, Michael Moon looks to Darger's resources, to the narratives and materials that inspired him and often found their way into his writing, drawings, and paintings. Moon finds an artist who reveled in the burgeoning popular culture of the early twentieth century, in its newspaper comic strips, pulp fiction, illustrated children's books, and mass-produced religious art. Moon contends that Darger's work deserves and rewards comparison with that of contemporaries of his, such as the "pulp historians" H. P. Lovecraft and Robert Howard, the Oz chronicler L. Frank Baum, and the newspaper cartoonist Bud Fisher.
A Night at the Ariston Baths
by Michael MurphyIn rural Pennsylvania, Theodore McCall lives on his family's farm and works as a clerk at the local general store. While his best friend, Martin Fuller, thrives in New York City, Theodore trudges through life. But on New Year's Eve, 1902, Theodore's world is turned upside down, and big changes call for bold action. Theodore, who has never ventured more than eight miles from home, undertakes the daunting journey to New York City to join Martin. But the Martin he finds in New York is a stranger, a different man, doing things Theodore finds shocking. After just two months in the City, Theodore's world is upended again as he and Martin are swept up in the events at the Ariston Baths. Haunted by his experiences in New York, Theodore returns home, wondering whether he'll ever find happiness in life. When he meets Jasper Webb, Theodore must boldly risk everything for the love he so longs for.
Book Fair
by Michael MurphyJacob's time working a booth for a gay lit publisher at a huge New York City book convention isn't turning out like he hoped. One of the publisher's boxes goes missing, and when he finds it, the box is wrapped up in union red tape. Then he gets into a nasty debate with Toni, a hunk Jacob would rather stare at than argue with. Maybe his first day at the book fair couldn't get worse, but it certainly gets weirder when, after an hour-long snarling match, Toni offers Jacob a ride to his hotel. Jacob accepts, but his day does not improve--the ride is nothing but awkward silence. Over the rest of the week, Jacob's life disintegrates, and Toni's repeated offers to drive him to his hotel become bright spots. Silence turns to civility turns to friendship, and though Jacob hopes for more, work keeps the two of them from spending much time together. Finally Jacob is free of obligations--but suddenly he can't find Toni anywhere, and Jacob's time in New York is coming to a close.
Breaking News
by Michael MurphyColeman Young sacrificed his personal life to achieve his professional goal: chief White House correspondent for his network. While others his age have spouses, children, and personal lives, Cole has only his faithful dog, Riley, and his lonely closet, so his producer hires a matchmaker to help him find Mr. Right. Forced to do something radical--leave work at a reasonable hour to prepare for his first date--Cole is shocked to walk into his house and find someone there: Marco, the grad student who walks and feeds Riley. It's too bad the matchmaker hadn't set him up with sweet, caring, adorably cute Marco--it would have saved him from a string of disastrous dates. But Cole doesn't know if Marco is gay, and he's not sure how to ask. Then the biggest news story of the political year breaks and Cole gets a unique opportunity to make a stand--one that could break his career and maybe do his asking for him.
Coin of the Realm
by Michael MurphyTimothy Mitchell worked his way from humble beginnings to graduate school in Washington, DC. The end is in sight--but so are his funds. Determined not to let his dream slip through his fingers, Timothy goes from part-time jobs to modeling for art classes, to stripping, and finally to working as an escort to pay his tuition. The nation's capital is full of powerful men and secrets, which Timothy learns firsthand when he takes on a client who demands absolute anonymity. Even though Timothy realizes he's sleeping with one of the most influential men in the world, he must keep up the facade. Despite that, their association moves from sex to love. But power and secrets also mean danger. When Timothy is violently abducted off the street, all because of what--and who--he knows, his lover must make a decision: risk his power and position or lose the man he loves.
Edizione straordinaria
by Michael Murphy Victor MillaisColeman Young ha sacrificato la sua vita privata per raggiungere il suo obiettivo professionale: diventare il corrispondente principale del suo canale televisivo alla Casa Bianca. Mentre le altre persone della sua età sono sposate, hanno figli e delle vite private, Cole ha solo il suo fedele cane Riley e sta in un armadio solitario, così la sua produttrice assume un organizzatore di incontri per aiutarlo a trovare l'uomo perfetto. Costretto a un cambiamento radicale - uscire dal lavoro a un orario ragionevole e prepararsi per il suo primo appuntamento - Cole resta scioccato quando entra in casa e trova qualcuno: Marco, lo studente universitario che si occupa delle passeggiate e del cibo di Riley. Peccato che l'organizzatore non gli abbia programmato un appuntamento con quel giovane dolce, premuroso e terribilmente carino: gli avrebbe risparmiato una sfilza di cene disastrose. Ma Cole non sa se Marco sia gay e non è sicuro di come chiederglielo. Poi scoppia la più sensazionale notizia di cronaca dell'annata politica e Cole ha l'opportunità unica di prendere posizione: questo potrebbe rovinargli la carriera e forse costringerlo a dichiararsi.
It Should Have Been You
by Michael MurphyAfter a hit-and-run driver kills David McCleary, his mother, Frieda McCleary, tells her younger son, Patrick, "It should have been you." While the McCleary family limps along for a while, it clearly died with David. In an effort to deal with her son's death, Frieda joins a fundamentalist church while her family watches her become a stranger. When she discovers Patrick is gay, she is convinced he is the reason David was taken from her. Patrick's father runs interference, but when he leaves town for work, she throws Patrick out onto the streets. As a blond-haired, blue-eyed sixteen-year-old kid from the suburbs, Patrick has lived a sheltered life and doesn't have a clue how to survive on his own. He's struggling until he meets a local priest running a homeless shelter who introduces Patrick to Juan, a street-savvy Latino youth wise beyond his years, and they strike up an instant rapport. It's not pretty, but they're making it together, until one night Juan goes off with a stranger to earn a few bucks... and doesn't come back. Patrick is determined to find him, regardless of the danger and cost.
Las ardillas pequeñas pueden escalar grandes árboles (Pequeñas ardillas #1)
by Michael Murphy Y. M. GarcíaKyle Miller es una especie rara. Aunque ha nacido en el seno de una familia conservadora, en un pequeño pueblo de Oklahoma, descubrió desde pequeño que tenía que escaparse de ese ambiente rural. Ahora vive en Nueva York, trabaja como médico de urgencias y debe pagar su enorme préstamo estudiantil. Nunca se ha subido en un avión ni ha visto una película, pero es lo suficientemente inteligente como para darse cuenta de que acaba de tener un flechazo. Aunque tampoco es que sepa cómo logró chocar contra Joseph, que mide unos treinta centímetros menos que él. Joseph es su opuesto en muchos sentidos: tiene dinero y Kyle no, confía en sí mismo mientras que Kyle es inseguro. Está totalmente decidido a mostrarle a Kyle lo especial que es y quiere que la confianza que demuestra en la sala de urgencias la emplee también en su vida diaria. Sin embargo el caótico horario de Kyle y su inexperiencia en relaciones amorosas complicarán este romance.
Little Squirrels Can Climb Tall Trees (Little Squirrels #1)
by Michael MurphyKyle Miller is a rare breed. Though born to conservative parents and raised in small-town Oklahoma, Kyle realized young that he had to escape rural America. Now he's living in New York City, working as an ER doctor, and paying off his massive student loans. He's never been on a plane and never seen a movie, but he is worldly enough to recognize attraction when it smacks him in the forehead. Not that he knows how he managed to crack heads with Joseph, who's a good foot shorter than Kyle's six and a half feet. Joseph is Kyle's polar opposite in other ways too, well-off where Kyle is poor, and self-assured while Kyle is insecure. He's also determined to show Kyle what a great guy he is and bring the confidence Kyle shows in the ER out in his everyday life. But Kyle's hectic work schedule and inexperience with relationships won't make for an easy romance.
Love in the Line of Fire
by Michael MurphyAgent Jonah Pratt heads the Secret Service team guarding the President’s husband. When a routine day turns into a dangerous assassination attempt, the stranger who dives into the melee and takes down the assassin complicates the situation, sparking Jonah’s anger. Just back from multiple tours of duty in Iraq, Benji hides the fact that he brought the war home with him and that it continues to haunt him. His actions in stopping the would-be assassin are more instinct than strategy. And his first conversation with a furious Jonah doesn’t end well. Losing a member of his team turns Jonah’s world upside down. And if Benji seems to know exactly what Jonah is experiencing, it’s because he went through the same thing in combat. Jonah’s work consumes him, leaving little room in his life for anything else, and Benji focuses on his studies, working to keep his nightmares at bay. But when they get together, Jonah and Benji recognize a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for love and happiness—one worth fighting for.
Mano's Story (Little Squirrels #2)
by Michael MurphySequel to Little Squirrels Can Climb Tall TreesMano and Jake, friends since childhood, are each the brother that the other never had, hermanos. It doesn't matter that Mano is gay and Jake is straight. They have each other's backs. When he grows weary of being used as a pawn by his parents as their marriage collapses, Mano moves in with Jake's family. Jake and Mano both need a chance to start over, so they move to Hawaii and work for Jake's uncle, Mano working as a lifeguard. In his free time, Mano explores his sexuality and finds he has no shortage of men in his bed. But after watching his parents' relationship disintegrate, Mano guards his heart and keeps it strictly sexual. Determined to become self-sufficient, Mano returns to college while still working full-time. When he meets the man of his dreams, he's too scared and unsure of himself to pursue him. For years he went out of his way to avoid getting close to a man, so now when he wants to, he doesn't know how. With the encouragement of Jake and others, Mano searches for the courage to go after what he's always really wanted.
Michael Murphy's Greatest Hits (Dreamspinner Press Bundles #8)
by Michael MurphyDon't miss these Michael Murphy novels about discovering love within differences inside and out.--Little Squirrels Can Climb Tall Trees: Joseph is Kyle's polar opposite, well-off where Kyle is poor, and self-assured while Kyle is insecure. He's also determined to show Kyle what a great guy he is.--When Dachshunds Ruled the Serengeti: Phillip and José, newly minted Ivy League roommates, couldn't be more different. They both need to adapt to their new environment and, in the process, quickly become fond of each other despite their differences.--It Should Have Been You: Patrick is struggling, homeless and on the streets, until he meets Juan, a street-savvy Latino youth wise beyond his years, and they strike up an instant rapport. It's not pretty, but they're making it together, until one night Juan goes off with a stranger to earn a few bucks... and doesn't come back.--Swan Song for an Ugly Duckling: Josh is horrified when a senior on campus seduces Aaron. He can't believe Aaron has always been gay and he missed it--and missed getting to be Aaron's first. But when Aaron finds out his boyfriend isn't faithful, things go from tense to worse.
Stranger in a Foreign Land (Dreamspun Desires #61)
by Michael MurphyAfter an accident stole his memory, the only home American businessman Patrick knows is Bangkok. He recovers under the tender ministrations of Jack, an Australian ex-pat who works nights at a pineapple cannery. Together they search for clues to Patrick’s identity, but without success. Soon that forgotten past seems less and less important as Jack and Patrick—now known as Buddy—build a new life together. But the past comes crashing in when Patrick’s brother travels to Thailand looking for him… and demands Patrick return to Los Angeles, away from Jack and the only world familiar to him. The attention also causes trouble for Jack, and to make their way back to each other, Patrick will need to find not only himself, but Jack as well, before everything is lost….
Swan Song for an Ugly Duckling
by Michael MurphyAaron and Josh come from extraordinarily different backgrounds in small town America. Aaron is the only child of a fundamentalist preacher who fears and condemns the ways of the world outside their community. Josh is a jock who can only seem to express the feelings Aaron stirs in him by tormenting Aaron about how he looks and dresses. But one day, Josh's world is turned upside down by a simple sentence spoken by Aaron, and he decides to get closer to Aaron. Aaron assumes it is a new form of torture, but Josh persists: first a ride home, then talking with Aaron while he does his afternoon farm chores. Then Josh persuades Aaron's father to let him participate in a scholastic event out of town one weekend. Josh pays a huge price for Aaron to attend, but that one weekend persuades Aaron to get free of his parents and attend college. College doesn't solve all their problems, though. Josh is horrified when a senior on campus seduces Aaron. He can't believe Aaron has always been gay and he missed it--and missed getting to be Aaron's first. But when Aaron finds out his boyfriend isn't faithful, things go from tense to worse.
The President's Husband
by Michael MurphyWhen an assassin's bullet strikes his predecessor, Grayson Alexander becomes the first openly gay President of the United States and his husband, David Hammond, becomes the first openly gay First Husband. With their world turned upside down, David relies on his career as a medical school professor and ER doctor to keep him grounded. But his decision to keep working ruffles feathers from day one. Gray throws himself into learning everything he needs to know to be President, especially a liberal president surrounded by a conservative cabinet and staff. Even though he puts in outrageous hours working and traveling seven days a week month after month, he's happy. But David has trouble coping with Gray's new job requirements. He can't help but feel abandoned by his husband of ten years. When Gray asks for his help with a public-health crisis, David obliges, but he is furious about what happens once the emergency passes. When they learn that the President's staff has manipulated them both, they wonder if their relationship can survive the White House.