Lee Mandelo

Lee Mandelo's debut Summer Sons is a sweltering, queer Southern Gothic that crosses Appalachian street racing with academic intrigue, all haunted by hungry ghost. Andrew and Eddie did everything together, best friends bonded more deeply than brothers, until Eddie left Andrew behind to start his graduate program at Vanderbilt. Six months later, only days before Andrew was to join him in Nashville, Eddie dies of an apparent suicide. He leaves Andrew a horrible inheritance: a roommate he doesn’t know, friends he never asked for, and a gruesome phantom that hungers for him. As Andrew searches for the truth of Eddie’s death, he uncovers the lies and secrets left behind by the person he trusted most, discovering a family history soaked in blood and death. Whirling between the backstabbing academic world where Eddie spent his days and the circle of hot boys, fast cars, and hard drugs that ruled Eddie’s nights, the walls Andrew has built against the world begin to crumble, letting in the phantom that hungers to possess him.

Summer Sons

Emma Hak-Kovacs

Andrew sank into the seat, stuck between the cold can in his fist and the heat of another boy's arm shifting through gears at his elbow.

"For fuck's sake, Andrew. Is there anything in this scenario that feels heterosexual or well-adjusted to you?"

His ghoul petted the interior of his skull, soothing his mind.

Andrew grappled with his desire to hide from that question. He'd known Eddie to the bone, or so he thought. But having Eddie's memories inside of him was different. The tender aw- fulness of remembering himself through Eddie's eyes, beautiful and cherished and wanted with raw confused intensity, with ownership, a sublimated tangled connection that Eddie had never spoken or unpacked, though it loomed so large — that understanding was an answer to the things about himself Del had made him confront, that he'd started figuring out with Halse, but it didn't help. Having been loved wasn't the same as being loved.

Summer Sons quotes

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