Finlater

In this acclaimed first novel -- winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Debut Fiction 2008, and finalist for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction -- the course of growing up in just-this-side-of-segregation 1970s Cincinnati, Ohio, seems predictable if uninspiring for Cliffy Douglas. That is, until the deadbeat father of this gifted 13-year-old black kid from the Findlater Gardens Projects appears out of nowhere. The real fun and trouble begin when Noah, a Jewish boy he meets in junior high school, takes him on a joyride to love and first lust.