published electronically, 2015

by

WWW.RICHARDBALTHAZAR.COM

 ISBN: 0-9632661-3-6

Catalogue as: gay novella

Click here for free download of the entire novella, or you can access the chapters individually by clicking on each in the following Table of Contents. 

The novella is not so much a coming-of-age or coming-out story as the intimate personal account of an innocently confused country boy who discovers love and himself.  Covering the senior year of two best buddies in high school at the end of the 1950’s, this all happens in backwoods Arkansas, mostly at a remote truck stop café called Piney Hill, where young Ben is virtually a prisoner.  The boy is swept up in an emotional whirlwind, besotted by a quixotic passion for the TV star Annette Funicello and at the same time bewildered by confusing feelings for his best buddy Danny.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. MAKING OUT
2. TREASURES OF DARKNESS
3. SMART ALECK
4. PENANCE
5. INDIAN WELL
6. A CHEER OF CHAMPIONS
7. ANNIE OVER
8. PLAYING AROUND
9. GETTING NAKED
10. SIN CITY
11. THE RACE
12. SOME TAIL
13. PUSH COMES TO SHOVE
14. HOTTER THAN THE DICKENS
15. STOMPED-ON TOAD-FROG

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