Independent Press Award
2024 Distinguished Favorite
Sex, Drugs & Spiritual Enlightenment (but mostly the first two)
Karuna Das
On the cusp of turning eighteen, it's time for Drew Lovell to become a man.
But deep within, Drew has questions-ones he doesn't know how to phrase-about what that means and how to go about it.
During three intense stretches between 1985 and 1993, taking him into his mid-twenties, Drew undergoes a series of profound experiences-often wild, sometimes painful, and always revealing-that force him to rethink his current assumptions. Only after nearly dying from trying to conform to conventional models of masculinity does he begin to become the man he wants to be and not the one he thought the world required him to be. Still, he's unable to live with full integrity until interaction with a pair of awakened humans inspires new awareness that helps him at long last embrace the truth of who he is.