Publisher's Synopsis
A Powerful Novel of Love, Loss, and the Courage to Be Yourself
It was the metal box that gave away 14-year-old Kurt's secret. The one he had hid on the top shelf of his closet, where he stashed the Playgirl. The one he stuffed with letters and photographs from his adoring boyfriend, Peter. And the one his mom discovers when she decides to get that old quilt down from her son's room.
That metal box and its contents are not okay in his conservative Baptist home. Now, with his father Nicholas's self-assured, fire-and-brimstone rhetoric raining down on him, Kurt decides to go where he might be wanted and hitches a ride west. He doesn't suspect that his brother Chad is wrestling with the very same kind of emotions. But growing up in the early 1970's, the boys have little to no help for them to understand who they are or guide them on what turns out to be a very rocky and dangerous path.
Seven years later, Nicholas finds himself alone in a house filled with the mere echoes of his perfect American family. He couldn't have been wrong about his decision to take a tough-love approach to his sons' sexuality or could he? Suddenly, Nicholas isn't so sure of anything anymore...
What follows is a journey of self-discovery, sexual adventure, personal loss and exhilaration. Savvy, touching and unflinchingly true, The Fear of Lightning is an eye-opening novel of love, desire, redemption and innocence lost that reverberates long after the story is over.
