The Men from the Boys

This classic novel by bestselling author William J. Mann features a gay man trying to come to terms with sex, friendship, aging, and falling--and staying--in love

This stunning slice of gay life at the turn of the millennium introduces thirtysomething Jeff O’Brien. After six years, his lover, Lloyd, has just announced that the passion between them has died. Terrified of ending up alone, Jeff turns his eye toward other men. But the anonymous, impersonal encounters leave him feeling sordid and used. In search of love during this ＂last summer in which I am to be young,＂ he finds romance with a beautiful houseboy named Eduardo. At twenty-two, Eduardo is the same age Jeff was when he began a relationship with the older David Javitz, a leading activist now gravely ill with AIDS. But David became more than a lover to Jeff, who wasn’t yet out of the closet. He was his mentor and cherished friend.

Narrated by Jeff, who’s caught between the baby boomers and generation X, the novel shuttles between summers in Provincetown and winters in Boston. The Men from the Boys is about the illusive nature of love and desire--＂the magic that happens across a dance floor,＂ leaving you ＂forever young.＂

William J. Mann is best known for his studies of Hollywood and the American film industry, especially Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, named a Notable Book of 2006 by the New York Times, and Hello Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand, published in 2012. He is also the author of Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, for which he won the Lambda Literary Award, and has published several novels, including the Edgar Award-winning Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood.