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Dream Boy: A Novel

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I purchased this book in time for a flight from LA to Miami. I did not know anything of it prior to reading the first page but, instantly the language and setting rang true to me in a very deep way. As the story tenderly unfolded, my childhood in North Carolina came flooding back to me with every mention of place and person. I found in my memory a site to fit every description and an emotion to match all those evoked. As my flight continued, I found in this book the power to transport me across the country faster than the 767 and to a place not serviced by American Airlines. I was in high school again and living in my hometown of 500 people. As my plane made its final descent into Miami I finished the novel and cried as I left the plane and airport filled with nostagia and regret.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone despite my very personal connection to it. The language and plot render it a truly Southern novel, with ties to Welty, filled with a beautiful peacefullness that overwhelms the evil exsisting so close. I wish I had been able to read about a love story like this when I was 16. Instead, I merely tried to live it.

I was so intrigued with the relationship of these two boys. It is passionate, hurtful, warm, and in the end brutal. The frsutarting thing for me was the ending. I wasn't sure if it was suppossed to be a dream or if it was real. I felt abit cheated and confused at the end. But I still recommend it none-the-less.

I was very excited to start this gay 'coming of age' book which has been so well received. I read it in almost one sitting on a flight from Boston to Seattle. On one hand, there is some lovely, haunting, and heartfelt writing here. The story is absorbing and the introduction and gradual insight into the the main character is well written. However, everyone save the narrator suffers by comparison. The supporting characters (even the ones who have great impact on the story) are very poorly drawn, and at times their actions are just implausible for the sake of drama. In any case, given the characters and the beginning of an involving story, the author seems to peter out about 2/3 of the way through. It felt to me as if the author were tired of this story and it's characters and tacked on this very rushed denouement that was out of sync with the first 2/3. It's a shame, because that first 2/3 is the intro to a great story that should have been a little more ambitious.

This book was a gift from a friend who thought I'd like it. And I appreciated the thought. In a way, I did like it. There were heart-wrenching moments and a nifty ending, but I just can't stand wading through the endlessness of the never-ending present-tense. Even in real life one does not live in the present tense. To me, this literary device, posing as great literature, is becoming all too common among gay writers. I'll be glad when writing an entire story in present tense is old hat and goes away.

DREAM BOY is the story of two teenagers in love. They each have their own demons to contend with, but come together in a kind of no-man's-land. I have hardly ever read anything this intense. During some scenes, I literally had to stop and come up for air. Incredible writing, brilliant story. Comes HIGHLY recommended!

The third novel by Atlanta writer Jim Grimsley tells the story of to adolescent boys coming to understand and accept their love for one another. Each boy does so at great personal risk. In this sense, Dream Boy is not a new love story in the realm of queer fiction. However, the novel is compelling for two reasons: love story between Nathan and Roy rings true, and the clear juxtaposition of their love with the world from which they emerge is equally persuasive. Though the book is a bit slow in the middle, the romance between the two and the rush of their interest is well realized. Nathan, in order to love Roy, has to separate his love for Roy and his sexual attraction to him from the continued abuse he suffers at the hands of his father. Grimsley clearly--and sometimes painfully--shows how Nathan remains faithful to his feelings for Roy; he measures his love for the other boy great enough to accept it. Occasionally hampered by overwriting, Dream Boy's premise is realized only in the last chapter, when the gothic backdrop of the story is brought into the foreground.

i'll start with the literary merits of this book: wow! grimsley manages to maintain a tone thru 190 pages, and that cannot be easy. the whole book is one rhapsodic series of connected images, and his use of foreshadowing astounds.

as to the erotic quality of the book, how dare he imply that a 15 year old boi can be sexually active! the intense honesty of that revelation is so refreshing, and it is wonderful to have read a coming of age gay novel that plays it honest.

i really don't understand the complaints of some people here about the ending; it is a perfect fit for the rest of the book.

i will be reaqding more of mr. grimsley's books, and i look forward to the film version of this one. now for the casting ...

As with Winter Birds, I read this book in one sitting and was quite agitated when disturbed- a good indicator of how engrossing the narrative is. Too often the standard models of love between young boys besiege us in modern representations of gay youth: a weak, confused misfit clamoring for the attention of a stronger, ostensibly better-placed peer. Of course, as with any John Hughes-esque tale of unrequited devotion, the weakling ultimately triumphs over the mentor in these books. This particular book rethinks that model and Nathan, the younger and physically "weaker" of the two, emerges from the beginning as the emotional and mental superior. The fact that he, unlike his "mentor", is entirely conscious of the ruinous passion that he actively pursues (and of its ensuing consequences) is ultimately a sign of his intelligence and desire to overcome the factors impeding his happiness. More disturbing, however, is the source of his experience: sexual abuse by his father. The parallels (sometimes overbearing and overstated) between lover and parent seem to indicate the novel's climax is engendered more by the father's treatment of Nathan more than by the violence of prejudice and jealousy. In this sense, the book paints a hopeful picture of an otherwise impossible love amidst the ruins of run-down, trashy Middle America. In sum, the eerily lucid construction of the physical and sentimental facets of Nathan and Roy's love further dispels the (relatively) common belief that gay men pursue only physical pleasure in their relationships. That Nathan and Roy's love surmounts the squalor of their surroundings universalizes what I gather is the remarkably simple theme of this multi-layered and important book: to be "whole", as Nathan is at the novel's end, is to be loved.

I was shaking at the end and cried and cried. I was happy and shocked by the uniqueness of the plot and the nice ending that the story has. A really sensitive writer. Nathan's love will continue to haunt me for some time. It simplicity and dept is something that I will treasure all my life. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the writer for writing such a wonderful book. Its stories like these that are the little miracles in literature today. It touches emotional vagabonds like me straight to my very soul........... Wishing you more and more success.

This book continues the theme of abusive Southern families found in the author's "Winter Birds." As in the previous work, the dreamlife of the main subject contrasts sharply with the reality of his violent, alcoholic father and long-suffering mother. Here the boy has reached adolescence and is able to pursue his flights from home in the rural woods and forests of the distant Southern past (1950s?). The story centers on a 15 year old's fantasies about the neighbor boy who drives his school bus. Their intense, sweet, sexual relationship swiftly is consumated, with the reader suspensefully anticipating a tragic end. The use of fantasy averts such a depressing conclusion while leaving the reader wondering how it could possibly be true. These boys are so sweet with each other that the violent conclusion can only be reconciled with a wish that the fantasy be real. I recommend reading "Winter Birds" first to set the tone of despairing abuse that still haunts the background of this teenage escape novel.