We drive at high speed along back roads, through woods, vineyards, and oat fields. The bike smells like gasoline and makes a lot of noise, and sometimes I’m frightened when the wheels slip on the gravel on the dirt road, but the only thing that matters is that I’m holding on to him, that I’m holding on to him outside.Just outside a hotel in Bordeaux, Philippe chances upon a young man who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back at the relationship he’s never forgotten, a hidden affair with a gorgeous boy named Thomas during their last year of high school. Without ever acknowledging they know each other in the halls, they steal time to meet in secret, carrying on a passionate, world-altering affair.Dazzlingly rendered in English by Ringwald in her first-ever translation, Besson’s powerfully moving coming-of-age story captures the eroticism and tenderness of first love—and the heartbreaking passage of time.

    Richard Garay lives with his mother, hiding his sexuality from her and from society. Stifled by his job, Richard is willing to take chances, both sexually and professionally. But Argentina is changing, and as his country edges toward peace, Richard tentatively begins a love affair. The result is a powerful, brave, and poignant novel of sex, death, and the diffculties of connecting one's inner life with the outside world.

    On the bus headed out of town they hook up with Finn and Critter, a couple of speed-freak boyfriends who take a shine to both of them. They also meet Ula, who is mourning the death of her fiancé and taking a trip across the United States in his memory. The five become fast allies, united by personal loss and by the allure of intimacy only friends in the throes of conflict can understand. When Jonnyboy drops out of sight, Radboy stays behind in San Francisco, where the underground world he has been introduced to inspires his own burgeoning sexual and emotional desires.

    How Billy faces up to himself-and his friends-as he discovers the complexities of life, the exuberance of sex, and what it means to be an adult in our imperfect world, makes for a touching, wise, and very moving novel.

    The first is told episodically by John, a hustler in New York, who falls in love with Martin, a man dying of AIDS. Interwoven with these stories is a second set, in which characters named Martin and John appear, but living different lives. The resulting novel is a work of stunning originality that is "inspired and brilliant" (The Nation).

    Law school, girlfriends, and career choices were all part of Raymond Tyler's life, but there were other, more terrifying issues for him to confront. Being black was tough enough, but Raymond was becoming more and more conscious of sexual feelings that he knew weren't "right." He was completely committed to Sela, his longtime girlfriend, but his attraction to Kelvin, whom he had met during his last year in law school, had become more than just a friendship. No matter how much he tried to suppress them, his feelings were deeply sexual.Fleeing to New York to escape both Sela and Kelvin, Raymond finds himself more confused than ever before. New relationships -- both male and female -- give him enormous pleasure but keep him from finding the inner peace and lasting love he so desperately desires. The horrible illness and death of a friend force Raymond, at last, to face the truth.

    However, Burns's early death at the age of 36 led to the subsequent neglect of this searching book, which captures the shock the war dealt to the preconceptions and ideals of the victorious Americans.Set in occupied Naples in 1944, The Gallery takes its name from the Galleria Umberto, a bombed-out arcade where everybody in town comes together in pursuit of food, drink, sex, money, and oblivion. A daring and enduring novel—one of the first to look directly at gay life in the military—'The Gallery' poignantly conveys the mixed feelings of the men and women who fought the war that made America a superpower."The first book of real magnitude to come out of the last war." —John Dos Passos

    Relief they'll never know that, hours earlier, she had been kissing a girl.But that relief doesn't last, and Cam is soon forced to move in with her conservative aunt Ruth and her well-intentioned but hopelessly old-fashioned grandmother. She knows that from this point on, her life will forever be different. Survival in Miles City, Montana, means blending in and leaving well enough alone (as her grandmother might say), and Cam becomes an expert at both.Then Coley Taylor moves to town. Beautiful, pickup-driving Coley is a perfect cowgirl with the perfect boyfriend to match. She and Cam forge an unexpected and intense friendship--one that seems to leave room for something more to emerge. But just as that starts to seem like a real possibility, ultrareligious Aunt Ruth takes drastic action to "fix" her niece, bringing Cam face-to-face with the cost of denying her true self--even if she's not exactly sure who that is.The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a stunning and unforgettable literary debut about discovering who you are and finding the courage to live life according to your own rules.

    He studies queer theory, has a dyke best friend, makes zines, and is a flâneur with a rich dating life. But Paul’s also got a secret: he’s a shapeshifter. Oscillating wildly from Riot Grrrl to leather cub, Women’s Studies major to trade, Paul transforms his body at will in a series of adventures that take him from Iowa City to Boystown to Provincetown and finally to San Francisco—a journey through the deep queer archives of struggle and pleasure.

    Hoyt, Peter begins to pen the letter that makes up the pages of Good Times/Bad Times.From Peter’s elaborate involvement on campus and meeting the closest friend he’s ever had to the unwelcome sexual advances he received from Mr. Hoyt, this letter tells of the ups and downs of Peter’s time at school.As the good times give way to bad and a series of compelling incidents steadily heighten the tension of his time as a student at Gilford Academy, readers fall under the spell of the magnificent storyteller Peter exposes himself to be. Good Times/Bad Times pulses with warmth and laughter of the young and still honest, complete with strong and memorable characters.

    Best friends. At least they used to be. But a year ago Sam cut Charlie out of his life--no explanation, no discussion, nothing. Fast-forward one year, and both Sam's and Charlie's lives are spiraling out of control. Sam has a secret he's finding harder and harder to hide, and Charlie is dealing with an increasingly absent dad and a dealer whose threats are anything but empty. As told in alternating chapters from Sam and Charlie during the sticky Florida summer before their senior year, the ex-best friends are thrown together once again when they have no one else to turn to. P. E. Ryan's Saints of Augustine is a witty, enthralling, and unforgettable novel about the power of friendship.

    Which, in his characters' vernacular, means he's a total scream.Having made a career of deconstructing the denizens of the modern gay world, Robert Rodi now turns his hand to -- and twists the knife in -- yet another gay archetype: the kept boy.Dennis Racine is 31, but looks 23...which might be considered his good fortune, except that even 23 is a bit old for his chosen profession: pampered "companion" to the fiftyish, filthy rich Chicago theatrical impresario Farleigh Nock (a.k.a. "the Papp of the Provinces"). In fact, Farleigh has lately become so resistant to Dennis's charms that he's conferred the ultimate indignity on him: demanding that he get a job.Dennis proves himself astonishingly unemployable, then learns that his old job is in peril as well; for Farleigh's affections have been snared by the lithe young pool boy Jasper Moran. When Jasper is promoted from chlorination duties to directing Farleigh's production of Lady Windermere's Fan, Dennis knows he's in danger of losing his place in Farleigh's life (not to mention his Last Will and Testament).Lending him a hand in a spirit of common cause are his two best friends. Lonnie Roach is the kept boy of an ancient gossip columnist; Paulette Ng is retained by a member of Congress whose anonymity she protects by referring to him only as "the Spanker of the House".Together they devise a plan to whisk Farleigh away from Jaspers influence, landing him in Greece, where Dennis can re-seduce him in exotic privacy. The scheme provokes bigger repercussions than Dennis ever expected and he finds himself fighting for his man -- and his man's legacy-- more fiercely than ever before, aided only by two Iowa co-eds and a maniacal Santorini grandmother.His satiric eye sharper than ever, but never straying from the deep humanity that makes his characters and stories so appealing, Robert Rodi once again delivers a fabulous, unforgettable farce of the kind that has made him so enduringly popular.

    They have a prickly history with each other and are, at least from Judy's perspective, constantly in fierce competition. Kyle has recently come out of the closet to his family and feels he might never know what it's like to date a guy. Judy, who has a history of pretending to be something she isn't in order to get what she wants, is pretending to be born-again in order to land a boyfriend who heads his own bible study.

    But the ensuing romance proves short-lived as Jimmy dies of an AIDS-related illness. The grieving Seamus is obliged to keep a promise to Jimmy: “Take me back the way I came.”    And so Seamus sets out by bicycle on a picaresque journey with the ashes, hoping to bring them back to Buffalo. He meets truck drivers, waitresses, college kids, farmers, ranchers, Marines, and other travelers—each one giving him a new perspective on his own life and on Jimmy’s death. When he meets and becomes involved with a young Native American man whose mother has recently died, Seamus’s grief and his story become universal and redemptive.

    Seventeen-year-old Edward Zanni, a feckless Ferris Bueller–type, is Peter Panning his way through a carefree summer of magic and mischief. The fun comes to a halt, however, when Edward’s father remarries and refuses to pay for Edward to study acting at Juilliard.Edward’s truly in a bind. He’s ineligible for scholarships because his father earns too much. He’s unable to contact his mother because she’s somewhere in Peru trying to commune with Incan spirits. And, as a sure sign he’s destined for a life in the arts, Edward’s incapable of holding down a job. So he turns to his loyal (but immoral) misfit friends to help him steal the tuition money from his father, all the while practicing for his high school performance of Grease. Disguising themselves as nuns and priests, they merrily scheme their way through embezzlement, money laundering, identity theft, forgery, and blackmail. But, along the way, Edward also learns the value of friendship, hard work, and how you’re not really a man until you can beat up your father—metaphorically, that is.How I Paid for College is a farcical coming-of-age story that combines the first-person tone of David Sedaris with the byzantine plot twists of Armistead Maupin. It is a novel for anyone who has ever had a dream or a scheme, and it marks the introduction to an original and audacious talent.