End Zone

A scintillating LGBTQ] novel that ricochets around the sleepy, affluent shoreline town of Gently, Connecticut. Partly a love story, other times an obsessional and dark fable, the only lacking element is a moral compass. Isolated sixteen-year-old Jay Souther is a rising sophomore at St. Andrew’s High School for Boys. Full of buoyancy and verve, Jay tries out for varsity football and makes the team as a third-string punter, but Jay is not prepared for the swirling darkness poised to consume him. He tries to outrun his attraction to charismatic senior player, Foster Gold. Jay doesn’t realize that Foster is the ringleader for some excruciatingly malevolent plans. Foster is joined by six-five, 235-pound two-time Parade All-American, Latino star Bear Santos. Bear is perpetually falling in and out of love with his best friend, Foster. Bringing in love and light to this wild fable is sixteen-year-old newbie skateboarding waitress, Basil Sous, a sophomore at Gently Public High and her new pal, neurodivergent senior at St. Andrew’s, Tuck Reis. Both Basil and Tuck grow close with Jay and use their natural empathy and compassion to chip away at the toxic masculinity of Foster’s rhetoric. Will it be enough for Jay to break free of the seniors’ cult-like influence in time to prevent tragedy?

David Fitzpatrick was born in Dearborn, Michigan and grew up in Guilford, Connecticut. He graduated Skidmore College with a B.A. in English and got his MFA at Fairfield University in 2011. David’s essays and fiction have been published in Running Wild Press, New Haven Review, Barely South Review and Perch and Fiction Weekly.