Where the Boys Are

In William J. Mann's witty and provocative follow-up to his acclaimed bestseller The Men From the Boys, Jeff O'Brien-still in search of love and sex-navigates the circuit in the company of friends, tricks, old loves, and irresistible strangers, going any place... Where The Boys Are "Someday, when they look back and write about these times, I will be able to say that I was here. I danced every dance and knew the words to every song." Jeff and his on-again, off-again lover Lloyd Griffith are thirty-something professionals still grieving the death of their mentor, Javitz. Jeff bounces from party to party, forgetting his pain only when he's on the dance floor, immersed in a sea of beautiful boys with sculpted pecs and speed-bump abs. At his side is his protege, best friend, sister, and not-so-secret admirer Henry Weiner, once a ninety-eight-pound weakling who has lately blossomed into a hunky muscle-boy escort. As the lives of Jeff, Lloyd, and Henry intertwine, each confronts a different challenge. Henry's repressed feelings of love for Jeff propel him on a quest to discover his own identity amid the often-seedy world of sex for cash. Lloyd deals with the dark side of the "fag hag" experience when his Provincetown housemate, Eva, exhibits increasingly bizarre behavior. But the most intriguing mystery of all involves the beautiful stranger Jeff meets at yet another circuit party and invites to move in. Anthony Sabe is a young man seemingly without a past, whose bright-eyed ingenuousness at first charms everyone, but later raises suspicions. When Jeff sets out to uncover the truth about Anthony, what he finds is progressively more disturbing, raising questions not only about Anthony but also about himself. Over the course of a life-changing summer, Jeff, Lloyd, and Henry deal with the myriad issues confronting gay men today: sex, drugs, grief, AIDS, barebacking, body image, commitment, one-night stands, and the search for love. The first novel to be set on the gay party circuit, Where The Boys Are evokes a world with its own language, customs, traditions, and idiosyncracies, set to a backdrop of sex, drugs, and dance music. "Guaranteed to send your temperature soaring."-The Advocate