It’s hard work, and intoxicating to Ben.Īuthor Dave Eggers, visiting Colorado in May, continues to surprise Rebecca, Gil’s girlfriend, senses Ben’s raw talent and pulls him into her world of high-level fashion photography. Adam thinks about him night and day, and worries he’s coming on too strong for Callum, that his gorgeous, freckled boyfriend is just dallying with him.īen, meanwhile, is essentially homeless and has apologetically tracked down his brother, Gil, a doctor at the fictional St. Adam worships Callum as the latter plays Bach numbers on a tattered piano. The latter hails from a loving, liberal home - not much like Ben’s uneasy one Ben’s mom doesn’t know what to do about his coming out - and is a film student who sees life through a sharp, always-moving lens.īen and Adam’s propulsive stories parallel, diverge from and, eventually feed into one another as they discover the freedom and danger of the city, its gay men ravaged indiscriminately by a poorly understood and federally politicized disease.įrom the get-go, Adam walks a path toward his first gay love, a taller, older man named Callum who seems to possess the secrets to classical music and emotional enlightenment. “It’s all so beautiful”īen’s tale in “When You Call My Name” is contrasted, chapter by chapter, with Adam, also fresh from high school. “No one looks happy,” he writes through the eyes of Ben, a young, fashion-obsessed man who just came out (as gay, to his mother) and just came out (to New York). Loose mufflers dragging through the East Village. He regards the “antsy pools” piled up at stoplights in muted, earth-toned overcoats. Wednesday, May 31st 2023 Home Page Close MenuĪ few pages into his fleet, aching new book, “When You Call My Name,” Tucker Shaw invokes late-20th century New York City so tangibly you can smell the cheese pizza, hear the yellow taxis honking and feel the frigid air on the back of your neck.

When You Call My Name by Tucker Shaw