Drama Queers!

Bradley Dayton is your typical outgoing, sarcastic 17 year old high school senior, circa 1987. He's also very comfortable with being gay, although he doesn't share this with his friends for fear they won't understand. Brad is also estranged from his former best friend (and first lover), Jack, simply because Jack could not accept his own homosexuality. Brad keeps busy through his involvement with the school band, and especially with his involvement in the school drama program, with dreams of attending Julliard School in New York City to study acting. Brad and Jack first appeared in Polito's earlier Band Fags!  although that novel centered on Jack's senior year, while Brad disappeared from its pages after they broke up. This second novel is not so much a sequel as it is an overlapping supplement to that first story, filling in what Bradley was doing during those last nine months of high school. For both boys, it is a time of discovery and disappointment, making friends and losing others, experiencing crushes that sometimes turn into relationships, and holding one's breath to see if their dreams for the rest of their lives prove to be attainable. While reading Band Fags! first would add to the enjoyment of this warm and witty novel, it stands very successfully on its own.

Paperback, 416 Pages, Published 2009