Jim Grimsley

Jim Grimsley's Dream Boy is as close to a literary horror novel as you'll ever get. The award-winning writer whose debut, Winter Birds, took critics by storm, arrives Monday to read from his latest book at Giovanni's Room. Dream Boy is a gripping account of gay adolescent love set against the ghosts of the antebellum South. Told in haunting, pared-down prose, Grimsley brings to life the budding love affair between Nathan, the new kid at school, and Roy, the older farm boy who takes him under his wing.

Introspective and evocative, the novel focuses more on Nathan's desire for solace than his troubled home life where he circumnavigates the sexual advances of his father, a whiskey-swilling holy roller. "It's true that the things Nathan does with Roy are the things he does with his father," explains the soft-spoken Grimsley, "only they're good when he does them with Roy."

The author has a genius for illuminating moments of vulnerability, when the right glance might prompt a first kiss, or the wrong word might drive a stake through the heart. Dream Boy builds to climax one dark night as Nathan and Roy stumble upon a dilapidated plantation house deep in the woods. Yet instead of catching a glimpse of the ghost rumored to haunt the place, they are visited by their own dark destiny as betrayal turns deadly. Whether their love will be enough to overcome this obstacle is the heartfelt crux of the book.

Like his characters, who blindly navigate through the dark mansion, Grimsley trusts instinct when writing: "I knew there was some enormous problem that Nathan was trying to work on, but I didn't know what it was until I was far into the book. It was clear to me that Nathan had sexual experience, but I didn't know where it came from. When it became clear, it was an interesting moment. I didn't particularly want to be writing about a child who is endangered that way, but there it was." Tantalizing and spooky, Dream Boy is a must-read for anyone who has ever mourned lost innocence. By the time you're done reading, you'll have to pry the slim volume from your white-knuckled grip.

Jim Grimsley reads at Giovanni's Room, 12th and Pine, Mon. Oct. 16 at 7:30p.m., 923-2960.

— Kelly McQuain