American Studies;

Infused with desire, betrayal, and healing, Mark Merils writes with dark humor of gay life in this century. Meet Reeve who thinks his life is over: his career is at an end and his landlord is evicting him because he made too much noise when a hustler beat him up. As he lies in his hospital bed, he finds himself brooding about the parallel ruin of his mentor Tom Slater, a famous American literary scholar. There is the further distraction of the patient in the next bed, a silent youth who arouses the desire in Reeve for straight men.