Dream Boy
By: a novel by Jim Grimsley.
Edition: 1st edition
Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Published: 1995
Place of publication: Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 195
ISBN-13: 9781565121065
Copyright date: 1995
Subjects: Fathers and sons -- Fiction; Abusive men -- Fiction; Teenage boys -- Fiction; Gay teenagers -- Fiction; Southern States -- Fiction
Description: First love is never easy. But when the new boy in a small town is being secretly abused by his father, first love might be the only thing that can save him.

With his mother busy in the kitchen and his drunken father reading scripture in the living room, Nathan can watch his schoolmate Roy from his upstairs bedroom window and dream about a life free from his father's night-time prowling. Nathan feels safer with Roy in the house next door and safer still with Roy beside him. Studying algebra shoulder to shoulder on Nathan's bed, one thing leads to another. But where will love lead Nathan?

In a corner of the rural South blistering with hatred and petty meanness, Nathan and Roy must hide their love from their friends, church, and families. But that comes easily to Nathan, who is used to keeping secrets. He is only afraid of the one secret he has always kept, even from Roy - the terrible truth about his father that makes his life impossible.

Fleeing the house one night with only a blanket to shelter him, Nathan escapes with Roy on a camping trip to the haunted ruins of a plantation. As the boys track a path through the otherworldly wilderness, a sense of unnerving peace begins to surface in Nathan, along with the awful certainty that he will never return home.