Kelly, an openly gay man, is a film critic and journalist for Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Texas Monthly.

[2] Benjamin Reilly, a high school English-teacher in Staten Island, N.Y., witnesses a fight between two students.

[5] This brings him back to childhood years of bullying by Terrence O'Connell, a popular jock he had a crush on at the time.

While on holiday in Vail, Colorado, he takes an HIV test - by the end of the novel, he learns he doesn't have AIDS.

Benjamin learns about the circumstances surrounding his sister's death and his brother's runaway streak as a teenager.