Isaac

Truly impressive: funny, melancholic and acutely real. Isaac takes me back to my own adolescence in London, to being on the precipice of adult life... bracing and uncensorious -- James Cahill, author of Tiepolo Blue
Curtis Garner's titular character encapsulates all the wide-eyed wonderment and boundless bruising of a queer awakening. Isaac will have you smiling & screaming in equal measure as he navigates his final summer before university. His naïveté and missteps are refreshing in a world that so often paints young people as cocky and all-knowing. As Isaac quickly learns, no one in life has it all figured it out -- Andrés N. Ordorica, author of How We Named the Stars
Garner writes like a queer, twenty-first century Richard Yates: honest, uncompromising, fearless, and completely engrossing
Through Isaac's coming-of-age story, Curtis Garner explores the vulnerability of growing up as a modern gay man, and the thrilling tensions of power, desire and shame in his first queer relationships. It thinks sensitively about masculinity, its potential for softness, beauty, and brutality. Scenes from this novel have lingered in my mind for months after reading it. I hope readers enjoy meeting Isaac as much as I did -- Lily Lindon, author of Double Booked and My Own Worst Enemy
A frank and tender portrayal of young queer identity, interrogating masculinity, family and the body through vividly sensual language. There's a prickling sense of unease throughout but ultimately a fragile sense of hope and possibility. I raced through it! -- Dr Kerry Andrew, author of We Are Together Because