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An urgent, beguiling, and timely novel that reveals the secrets and obsessions of four young American men-and the repercussions for their loved ones-after their mysterious deaths
Caleb was driving home for Christmas. Steven was pounding beers at a local bar. Matthew was out looking for his ex-girlfriend. Leo was walking in the woods on a winter night. Then they disappeared.
Days, weeks, years later, their bodies turn up in icy rivers hundreds of miles apart. How did they get there? What, if anything, connects them? Some of their loved ones believe the official answers. Some are convinced the boys are victims of an insidious network called the Smiley Face Killers. Some are trying to forget them altogether. Meanwhile, Caleb, Steven, Matthew and Leo find one other-and other boys like them-in the murky depths of the afterlife. Each tells his story in his own way, speaking his version of truth, confessing his desires and grievances and even his hopes for a future he still somehow believes belongs to him.
These boys are charmers and heartbreakers, flirts and fabulists. As acclaimed author Christopher Castellani traces their lives and deaths, and interweaves the voices of their friends, family, and lovers, he brings great insight to our culture's construction of masculinity, its promises of glory, and its impact on the psyches not only of boys but of the men they may become. Christopher Castellani is the author of four previous novels (the trilogy A Kiss from Maddalena, The Saint of Lost Things, and All This Talk of Love) and The Art of Perspective, a book of essays on the craft of fiction. He is the winner of a 2024 Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim and Mass Cultural Council fellow, and the 2022-24 writer in residence at Brandeis University. His fourth novel, Leading Men, is currently being adapted into a film for Fox Searchlight Pictures by Oscar-winning producer Peter Spears and director Luca Guadagnino. He lives in Boston and Provincetown.
Caleb was driving home for Christmas. Steven was pounding beers at a local bar. Matthew was out looking for his ex-girlfriend. Leo was walking in the woods on a winter night. Then they disappeared.
Days, weeks, years later, their bodies turn up in icy rivers hundreds of miles apart. How did they get there? What, if anything, connects them? Some of their loved ones believe the official answers. Some are convinced the boys are victims of an insidious network called the Smiley Face Killers. Some are trying to forget them altogether. Meanwhile, Caleb, Steven, Matthew and Leo find one other-and other boys like them-in the murky depths of the afterlife. Each tells his story in his own way, speaking his version of truth, confessing his desires and grievances and even his hopes for a future he still somehow believes belongs to him.
These boys are charmers and heartbreakers, flirts and fabulists. As acclaimed author Christopher Castellani traces their lives and deaths, and interweaves the voices of their friends, family, and lovers, he brings great insight to our culture's construction of masculinity, its promises of glory, and its impact on the psyches not only of boys but of the men they may become. Christopher Castellani is the author of four previous novels (the trilogy A Kiss from Maddalena, The Saint of Lost Things, and All This Talk of Love) and The Art of Perspective, a book of essays on the craft of fiction. He is the winner of a 2024 Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim and Mass Cultural Council fellow, and the 2022-24 writer in residence at Brandeis University. His fourth novel, Leading Men, is currently being adapted into a film for Fox Searchlight Pictures by Oscar-winning producer Peter Spears and director Luca Guadagnino. He lives in Boston and Provincetown.