Sixty-two-year-old Reeve lies in a hospital bed—the result of a vicious beating. As he convalesces, he constructs a history for the reader, not just of the lives of himself and his mentor, Tom Slater, but of fifty years of America and the gay experience. Called “an intelligent, compassionate and moving novel” by Dale Peck, this first novel by Mark Merlis is back in print to illuminate a world that for many has never been known and, for some, will never be forgotten.  

Mark Merlis is the prize-winning novelist of An Arrow’s Flight and Man About Town.