Rapture

"Rapture" follows the evolution of a gay man, Jerrod O'Rourke, from early youth to middle age. In the first chapter he witnesses the murder of an aged black umpire at a softball game. The sudden, guilt-ridden emptying of the ball diamond has the feel to this impressionable boy of the Biblical Rapture. Later as a Sunday School boy, to prove he's not a sissy, he leads two church mates down the unknown side of a treacherous mountain. This inspires a prompting of homosexual desire. As a pianist at age 16, he dazzles the audience with a performance of a Liszt Rhapsody. He subsequently lodges the family auto in a river of mud. This leads to the discovery of not only being gay but scarily different. Home from college, he's conned into terrorizing a queer motel. This leads to a wee-small-hours romp or homegrown orgy in a deserted swimming pool. A main player is lusty Phil, the love of his life. After a stint in the Army there ensues a trip to San Francisco in search of the long-lost Phil. Jerrod locates him at an underground baths. To rescue him from drugs and sexual excess (S&M content), he abducts him to a remote mountain cabin. After a period of uninhibited happiness, Phil dies in his arms from Hepatitis B. In the end, Jerrod elopes with a young, handsome, black hustler. In a symbolic sense, his own Rapture--the emptying of the past and embrace of a new, likely dangerous future.