In this auspicious debut, Dale Peck weaves together two sets of stories to create a compelling portrait of an artist in our time. The first is told episodically by John, who flees an abusive father and becomes a hustler in New York City. It's 1982, and at the age of nineteen John falls in love with Martin, who soon becomes ill with AIDS. They leave New York for Kansas, where Martin dies two years later. In his struggle to regain his own health, John obsessively orders his existence. He begins to keep a journal and then to write stories.

Interwoven with this narrative is a second set of stories, penned by John. Each has a first-person narrator named John; each centers on a couple named Martin and John, who are always, it turns out, different characters. John knows he is HIV-positive, but through his writing he learns to accept the prospect of a life that, however brief, has at least been examined. In the end, the "Martin and John" stories illuminate the frame narrative, embodying John's belief - and the author's - that "every fiction is opposed to some truth." In luminous prose and with a frankness about sexuality rarely seen in contemporary fiction, Dale Peck has written a haunting, heartrending novel that establishes him as one of our most daring young American writers.