Tom Lennon (–2002)

I LOVED this book because it was so heartfelt. The end made me cry. It is about an Irish boy coming out in the early 1990's with all the homophobia and bigotry that entails.

Neil Byrne, soon-to-be-graduate from a Catholic high school seems to have it all: rugby star, good grades, and a nice group of friends. But he also harbors a dark secret he feels he can share with no one, he is gay in 1992 Dublin, Ireland. His feelings of fear, isolation, and self-loathing are palpable as he struggles with his sexuality and how to come out to his friends and family. He is surrounded by the virulent homophobia of a less enlightened time exacerbated by Ireland being a very Catholic country. In the midst of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, there are no real resources save for a gay bar or two in Dublin. As he grows more distant from his friends who are all coupling up (he calls them the “rhyming couplets”), he begins to visit a gay bar in town, the only way for gays to connect. He is at odds with his father about his future university plans, he wants liberal arts, his dad wants engineering, and he cannot even imagine telling him he’s gay. He slowly makes friends with other gay boys and men and has his first relationship. The book touches on AIDS, gay bashing, and societal attitudes towards homosexuality. Published under a pseudonym by an Irish school teacher in 1993, an introduction by James Klise celebrating the twenty year anniversary edition juxtaposes how much more difficult being gay and coming out was in the pre-Internet era. A glossary of Irish slang will help readers unfamiliar with it.… (meer)