Arctic Summer — Kevin Killian

Liam Reilly plunges head first into 1952 convinced that it will be a momentous year. He has, after all, everything a privileged young gay man of the time could want including, he thinks, love in the arms of the famous poet Ralph Isham. But the inevitable follies of youth intervene, and by year's end Liam's circle; guileless Tommy, needy, unfocused Diane, and the strangely oblivious Guy de Remours has been contorted and ultimately shattered by the victimizations of love and hate. In sensuous, metamorphic prose, Killian examines the ambiguous motivations and confused loyalties of the young, fashioning a coming of age novel quite unlike any other.