A year after the AIDS-related death of filmmaker Clarence Laird, known to friends as Angel Clare, his young boyfriend, Michael, is still in deep mourning. Clarence's older, sophisticated friends-male and female, gay and straight-find themselves the custodians of Michael, a callow kid they never liked much to begin with. What follows is a dark, intimate comedy about real grief and false grief, misunderstanding, friendship, love, and forgiveness.

"Spanning more than sixty years from the Civil War to the early 1920s, and moving from the battlefields of the South to New York City, through Paris, London, Constantinople, and Coney Island, [this novel] features Augustus Fitzwilliam Boyd, alias Dr. August, an improvisational pianist who believes his music is sometimes inspired by the spirit world. He is in love with Isaac Kemp, an ex-slave who only sporadically returns his affections and who himself...

The last days of James Whale, the acclaimed director of such horror movies as Frankenstein. In ill health, his mind projecting never-ending rushes from his life, he directs his own death at the hands of his homosexual gardener. By the author of In Memory of Angel Clare

It's 1957, and Hollywood horror director James Whale's heyday as the director of "Frankenstein," "Bride of Frankenstein" and "The invisible man" is long behind him. Retired and a semi-recluse, he lives his days accompanied only by images from his past. When his dour housekeeper Hannah hires handsome young gardener Clayton Boone, the gay director and the simple yardman develop an unlikely friendship.