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Product Description
November 1972. The Vietnam War is rumored to be drawing to a close, and for sixteen-year-old Paul Landon, the end can’t come soon enough. The end will mean his older brother Chris, the family’s golden child, returning home from the Army for good. But while home on leave, Chris entrusts Paul with a secret: He’s gay. And when Chris is killed in action, Paul is beset by grief and guilt, haunted by knowledge he can’t share. That summer, Paul is forced to work at his family’s pet supply store. Worse, he must train a new employee, JJ O’Neil, a gay college freshman. But though Paul initially dislikes JJ for being everything he’s not—self-confident, capable, ambitious—he finds himself learning from him. Not just about how to handle the anxious, aggressive dogs JJ so effortlessly calms and trains, but how to stand up for himself—even when it means standing against his father, his friends, and his own fears. Through JJ, Paul finally begins to glimpse who his brother really was—and a way toward becoming the man he wants to be… Praise for the novels of Robin Reardon “Stirring…thoughtful and convincing.”--Publishers Weekly on Thinking Straight “A compelling story well worth your time…Reardon is an author to watch.”--Bart Yates, author of The Brothers Bishop on A Secret Edge
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Stephen (USA: MD) (2011/11/19):
Robin knocks another one outta the park!This book is great. A black sheep younger brother must come to terms with the death of his older brother and idol during the Viet Nam war. Added to the usual tension and grief is the confusion the soldier left in his wake. The night before his return to duty the soldier he came out to his younger brother but swore him to secrecy. Not only that he was gay but that he felt he would die in Viet Nam. From the first chapter this story grips your attention and you quickly fall under the spell of the younger brother who's trying to come to terms with what he knows. Reardon has that unique talent of being able to tell a compelling story that deals with tough issues in a fair minded manner that always seems to shed new light on tough topics. Having just finished Edmund White's much lauded The Beautiful Room Is Empty, I needed a book like this. Something that was about things more important than a perfectly crafted phrase. I feel like I'm a better person for the understanding and insight I gain by reading Reardon's fiction. It's books like this that remind me why I'm a reader.
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