All American Boy
"Would you come home, Walter? Please?"\ With these desperate words from the mysterious, distant mother he hasn't seen in ten years, Wally Day finds his carefully constructed world falling in on itself. For years, the handsome actor has made denial his own particular art form - from his stalled career to his emotionless embrace of the hard-edged boys who regularly traipse through his bedroom. But now, faced with this sudden intrusion from his past, Wally must confront the reasons he left his...
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"Would you come home, Walter? Please?"With these desperate words from the mysterious, distant mother he hasn't seen in ten years, Wally Day finds his carefully constructed world falling in on itself. For years, the handsome actor has made denial his own particular art form - from his stalled career to his emotionless embrace of the hard-edged boys who regularly traipse through his bedroom. But now, faced with this sudden intrusion from his past, Wally must confront the reasons he left his hometown of Brown's Mill in a cloud of anger, shame, and guilt. He must look face-to-face upon the ghosts of his past: his mother, whom he once loved more than anyone else in the world; his abusive father, who never looked at Wally without contempt and suspicion; the life-affirming Miss Aletha, whose love had given Wally refuge; and most of all, Zandy - the man whose memory still haunts him, whose love for Wally had been called a crime.As Wally unravels the dark side of his All-American family, he has a chance to make peace with the boy he was in order to become the man he needs to be. He is once more the 14-year-old living at Miss Aletha's house on the wrong side of town, the music of Saturday Night Fever providing the charged, erotic soundtrack to his life. The world was on the exuberant edge of change in those days, and Wally relives the thrill of discovery, the promise of forbidden sex - and the mistake that cost him everything.It's a journey that will take Wally back to his past-to a time when he was the good son, the smartest boy in his class, the shining picture of the All-American Boy.Bestselling author William J. Mann has written his most powerful work yet: a searing novel aboutthe difference between going home and finding yourself there. By turns poignant and sexy, harrowing and hopeful, All American Boy is a big, wise book filled with insight, humor, hurt, truth, and the ever-renewing hope of love.Publishers WeeklyMann (Where the Boys Are) shifts gears from party-boy frivolity to the tragic consequences of buried family secrets in his most complex novel to date. Back home in pastoral Brown's Mill, struggling gay actor Wally Day reunites with his estranged mother, Regina, who's convinced she's losing her mind. For Wally, memories of home consist of his navy captain father's abuse; the kindness of his transsexual friend, Miss Aletha; schoolyard taunts; and a forbidden relationship with an older man, Zandy, that got Zandy jailed on child molestation charges when Wally was 15. As Wally seeks closure with his past, he becomes infatuated with Miss Aletha's latest teenage runaway, Donald, and frets over the instability of his elderly mother. She harbors memories of a horrible childhood and the shocking death of her sister, Rocky, and she's certain that she's recently murdered Wally's violent cousin, Kyle, and has forgotten where the corpse is. Amid clots of abysmal backstory, Wally comforts his mother and finally faces Zandy, who is now dying of AIDS. Fans expecting a bouncing circuit party might be traumatized by Mann's relentlessly bleak material, though some will be refreshed by his audacious change of pace. Agent, Malaga Baldi. (May) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
\ Publishers WeeklyMann (Where the Boys Are) shifts gears from party-boy frivolity to the tragic consequences of buried family secrets in his most complex novel to date. Back home in pastoral Brown's Mill, struggling gay actor Wally Day reunites with his estranged mother, Regina, who's convinced she's losing her mind. For Wally, memories of home consist of his navy captain father's abuse; the kindness of his transsexual friend, Miss Aletha; schoolyard taunts; and a forbidden relationship with an older man, Zandy, that got Zandy jailed on child molestation charges when Wally was 15. As Wally seeks closure with his past, he becomes infatuated with Miss Aletha's latest teenage runaway, Donald, and frets over the instability of his elderly mother. She harbors memories of a horrible childhood and the shocking death of her sister, Rocky, and she's certain that she's recently murdered Wally's violent cousin, Kyle, and has forgotten where the corpse is. Amid clots of abysmal backstory, Wally comforts his mother and finally faces Zandy, who is now dying of AIDS. Fans expecting a bouncing circuit party might be traumatized by Mann's relentlessly bleak material, though some will be refreshed by his audacious change of pace. Agent, Malaga Baldi. (May) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.\ \
