GOOD BOYS is an exceptional novel by Paul Reidinger. The focus of the book is on three college boys who are best friends, and follows their life until 10 years later, when they recross each other's paths, as they deal with the happenings in their life.

Meet Chris. He is a man who is gay, only his friends Drew and Michael don't know that he is. He loves Drew, but can't act upon his feelings. He moves to California. He meets Wade, who is his first time. As well he becomes involved with David, another college chum. When he is invited to a party by David, he meets Carl, an older man who he falls in love with. Carl brings him everything he needs from life, a dialogue of intimacy which is beginning to make sense. Chris' life is thrown into a whirlwind when he learns that Carl is dying of AIDS, and then ultimately dies. In the end he stays friends with Wade and David, they've all slept together but still manage to have a friendship like no other.

Meet Drew. He is a lawyer who believes he has everything in life. He fell in love with Dana, who he thought was quite similar but was actually quite different. They butted heads over issues like marriage, commitment, and more. She left him, and he never quite got over it. He struggles with a private solitude not even he fully understands. He is dealing with his brother Geoff's sexuality, later realizing he may have these desires as well. The irony of the situation presents itself when he has a sexual encounter with Wade, the same man that Chris had his first gay sexual encounter with. The irony lying in that fact, and that Chris secretly desired Drew.

Meet Michael. His parents want him to become a doctor, and he receives his PhD. In college he meets Meredith, who he falls madly in love with. They get married, and have a son. The son in question though, Michael believes is a result of her affair with his ex roomate Joe. Years before he had an affair with Dana, Drew's girlfriend, and he can't quite shake her out of his head. He feels unsatisfied by his career, and is uncertain of his ability as a father or a husband.

This novel resonates with honesty, and quite a bit of irony. In the end they are all still friends, sure there are secrets of their betrayals, but they are still as close as they were in college. GOOD BOYS is a portrait of three young men coming to terms with how the past has shaped who they are, and a future that we can all recognize.

"The City Kid" is a mostly well-written novel about Guy, a middle-aged gay man cut adrift by a break-up, and a 16-year old named Doug, who seeks Guy's company for uncertain reasons during a tumultuous time in his family's life. Reidinger has an intelligent prose style that can deftly evoke a place or a mood. Here is a wonderfully tight paragraph: "They drifted out of the park, up an adjoining street. Televisions flashed dimly in the bay windows of refurbished Victorian homes, doing the important work of holding the republic together. Guy had no idea where they were going, but Doug plainly did." Unfortunately, this conciseness is often lost amidst passages of overwriting (there are far too many clauses that begin "as if...") and precious language (one paragraph contains the following words: beckoning, perusing, trills, casement, and bestir). The same goes for the plot: on the one hand there is a genuinely compelling narrative about two men, one young, one older, who are wary about intimacy. Yet their story gets lost amidst endless narrative side-trips, flashbacks, and character sketches that do nothing to advance the story. In the end the main characters lack depth, and the final pages fizzle out. Still, Reidinger captures many aspects of contemporary life in San Francisco, and I was compelled enough by his affecting, sometimes sexy story to read on to the end.

This novel is definitely not for everybody. I'm not saying that because it is a gay novel but because it talks about a serious matter - 16 year old has a crush on a 40 year old and you see what happens. This would be an awesome book for teenagers (15-18) to read or anyone who has had unrequited love. Reidinger helps explain the reasons why some people do not return the affection that you may have for them and he does it well. As I said, it is a novel that is very well written but not for everyone.

I first discovered Paul Reidinger's work many years ago with his novel The Best Man. I was astonished by that book. Reidinger took as his subject a near universal experience of gay life which, paradoxically, had been largely ignored by the official gay litterati. Show me a gay man who hasn't experienced at least an infatuation (if not a full on romance) with a closeted guy determined to marry, father children, and pass for straight, and I'll show you a gay man who's only been out of the closet himself for about fifteen minutes. Reidinger's handling of that subject matter is scrupulously honest and at the same time beautifully told. In The City Kid, he once again treads ground multitudes of mature gay men have tread before him. The story of a middle aged gay man entangled in a bizarre relationship with a monumentally confused adolescent can't help but be messy and discomforting, but it's a realistic one. Reidinger doesn't so much create his characters as report the experiences of living, breathing human beings, flawed as they are and boring as they can occasionally be. He tells us the truth about people and relationships. He deals with issues and situations few authors will attempt to write about. They're not glamorous or particularly sexy, and they demand a degree of integrity in their portrayal which many writers simply won't bother to muster. This novel may not be the most entertaining one you'll ever read, but it will be one of the most thought provoking ones. And for fans of The Best Man, there's the additional treat of revisiting the main characters of that novel twenty some years later. If you don't like books that make you think, you probably won't like this one. But if fiction is more than brain candy for you, then you're making a mistake not reading this book.