Common Sons

When best friends Tom Allen and Joel Reece attend a country/western dance to celebrate the beginning of the summer vacation, heavy drinking with their high school friends and a drunken kiss between the two boys causes all hell to break loose. Later, when their kiss turns into much much more that same night, Tom and Joel are set on different paths, attempting to understand what the new turn in their friendship means. A preacher's son, Tom Allen turns inward with guilt and shame; but Joel Reece, confident of his own feelings and brought up to believe in himself, tries to win Tom's love. Whether the two friends succeed in resolving their differences is made much more difficult by all those who witnessed their drunken kiss at the dance and who now suspect them both of being queer.The time is 1965 and the setting is in southwestern New Mexico, in the small farming town of Common."Reading some novels is like meeting somebody at a cocktail party, enjoying the chat and never seeing them again. Other novels become like friends whose company is enjoyed over and over. Such a book, for me, is Common Sons."-Patricia Nell Warren, author of The Front Runner and The Wild Man