Eddie Socket left a small town in deepest New Jersey, suffocating and eccentric parents, a name (Wally Jeffers), the gay-baiting years of high school, and the secluded unreality of college and headed for the city of Big Dreams: Manhattan. In his Lambda Literary Award-winning debut novel, John Weir reveals how the heady promise of one decade was challenged by the unimaginable grief of the next, and how that earlier promise was preserved by bravery, compassion, and the healing power of humor.