The Monster & the Proxy: A Novel

Ben and his Uncle Jamin are born five days apart and, like the double-helixed strands of DNA which bind them, their lives interlace-crossing and diverging at regular intervals. The Monster & the Proxy is a touching and uproarious portrait of two boys growing up in the liberation-crazed '60s & '70s, and vaulting into manhood in the plague-ridden '80s & '90s. Jamin "comes out" in high school with disastrous results while Ben-attracted to everyone but having sex with no one-doesn't know what to come out as. The Monster & the Proxy takes on the politics of sex and victimhood; it is a meditation on life and premature death; an exegesis on love and loss; it will make you believe that AIDS can be cried over and laughed about; it demonstrates that today's hero can be tomorrow's villain because we are made complex, which is the richness, sorrow and joy of being human.