A favorite on Thebes' poll in 2012 and again in 2013, and a local bestseller in Los Angeles, Richard Kramer's smart, funny, affecting gay novel These Things Happen
[Kindle] gives voice to multiple narrators as fifteen year-old Wesley navigates first love and four parents -- mom, stepdad, dad, and dad's partner George, who to my mind is the book's winningest character. The story's heart and snap is no surprise to followers of Kramer's impressive career in television, writing / directing / producing many series including My So-called Life, Thirtysomething, and Tales of the City. Indeed, this story is ready to become a series for HBO produced by Oprah. Read it now before the show kicks Modern Family asunder.
Someone had an inspired idea to illustrate this New York novel with art by James McMullan (get his brand new Leaving China: An Artist Paints His World War II Childhood
) but it's wrong to denude the cover of its many marquee blurbs and reviews. NYT: "Funny and captivating." PW: "Kramer's triumph." Lambda: "Compulsively readable." Julia Glass: "A fresh, brave love story." Michael Cunningham: "Incisive, wise, funny, moving." Cathleen Schine: "Artful, thoughtful, and extremely funny... wonderful." Daniel Mendelsohn: "wise and wide-eyed, sage and sensitive, extremely funny and, in the end, disarmingly touching."
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