The Tragedy of Miss Geneva Flowers — Joe Babcock

Like many gay sixteen-year-olds, Erick Taylor dreams of being a star. The problem is that he's unpopular and stuck in Catholic school, and his parents, in their own desperate search for sainthood, fail to see that their son is on a path toward self-destruction. Unable to face his tormentors at school, unsure of whether he wants to live or die, Erick meets Chloe, “a twenty-six-year-old self-proclaimed ‘grandiloquent' drag queen.” With a glam-rock makeover and a pair of platform shoes, Erick finally finds the courage to out himself, erasing his former identity and leaping blindly into Minneapolis's gay nightlife. What begins as an innocent journey of self-discovery soon turns tragic when Erick's life as an aspiring drag queen is halted by the unthinkable, and he finds himself alone, lost in the insanity of a world exploding. With exhilarating style and dark wit, Joe Babcock -- winner of the Best Self-Published Novel awards from both Writer's Digest and the Lambda Literary Foundation -- paints a provocative, devastating portrait of what it's like to grow up gay.