Product Description

"Funny, romantic, surprising, lusty and totally original." --EDMUND WHITE, author "A Boy's Own Story" and "My Lives"

The last year of the 20th century, and 18-year-old Adam Westman finds himself "on the verge of manhood," as his best friend Dart likes to say. He lives in the exact center of center-less Los Angeles with his depressed father, Greg, and imaginative younger sister, Sandra. When Greg suddenly dies, more than everything changes and the relatively smooth orbits of family and friends are altered when Adam needs them most. In the middle of the drama, a man in uniform appears-and he is more than interested in Adam. This man, a policeman, is warm, witty and wise. He is 6 foot-something, dirty blond, and . . . well, he's a California Boy trapped inside the body of a 38 year-old man. But how can Adam consider the possibility of a relationship when he is dealing with his father's death, his friends' (and his own) pre-pre-pre mid-life crises, his mother's ambivalence, and his little sister's need for him? Then again, how can he not?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #454666 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 312 pages

Review
"Krach’s prose offers much insight into various worlds and the emotional landscapes of loss and mourning and young, fresh love." -- Time Out New York, 2004 (Beth Greenfield)

"A Lolita-like gay love affair unfolds on the stage of sunny suburban Southern California." -- Publisher's Weekly

"Aaron's writing glides like the camera in an Robert Altman ensemble piece, picking up and illuminating details to slowly, invisibly build a greater whole. There's not a word, sentence or piece of dialogue out of place, or unnecessary, in this beautifully rendered meditation on human nature and relationships." -- Gay Times UK

"Krach's engrossing tale offers much insight into various worlds ---from that of gay teens who chill in 7-Eleven parking lots to the emotional landscapes of loss and mourning to young, fresh love." -- TimeOut New York

"An amazingly compelling debut... Aaron Krach proves to be a tremendously talented master of detail." -- OUT magazine

"In his first novel, Aaron Krach has given us the story of two June weeks in the lives of Adam and his friends--days of love, death and coming of age, all rendered with a perfect understanding of how boys at the edge of manhood think and (with more than a couple of laugh-out-loud lines) how they talk. 'Half-Life' is illuminating." -- Elizabeth Stone, author of "A Boy I Once Knew"

From the Publisher
"'Half-Life' A Lolita-like gay love affair unfolds on the stage of sunny suburban Southern California." -PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Half-Life is about being-or at least feeling-young and old at the same time. About loving, or wanting to love, but knowing that life and love are both as exuberant and seductive yet two-dimensional and illusory as a billboard along any of Los Angeles's endless freeways.

From the Author
"'Half-Life is funny, romantic, surprising, lusty and totally original." --EDMUND WHITE

"A sexy, soulful, and sassy exploration of the sparks that fly when humans collide." --TIM MILLER, author of "Shirts and Skins" and "Body Blows"

Customer Reviews

A simple story
My expectations were not high for this book, which was heavily promoted in several gay magazines.

As a huge fan of gay literature (and literature, in general), I read the book in 3-4 sittings.

Krach's sense of character is terrific; his story-telling sparse.

I wish he had cut back on some of the characters in order to have more "quality time" with some of the main characters, but he creates a very surreal feel to a fake town outside of Los Angeles. An anti-OC, for sure.

It's good, it's fast -- and it's not going to change your life. Ultimately, I found myself wanting something else to happen. With all of the foreshadowing, one expects something gigantic to happen in Act Three, and, a lot like life, everything just kind of melds together.

One nit-picky thing (that has nothing to do with Aaron Krach or his obvious abilities) -- how does Alyson Publications get away with publishing a book FULL of typos, grammatical errors and punctuation mistakes?

Not what I expected!
When I read that this novel centered on the relationship between a 38 year old man and an 18 year old man I was a little worried it was going to be nothing more than erotica (not that anything is wrong with that; just not what I wanted to read). Instead, what I found was a wonderfully observed and detailed novel that put me in mind of Anne Tyler. Mr. Krach does a terrific job of making me understand how Adam (18) and Jeff (38) come to fall in love. In fact, by the end of the book I had completely forgotten there was any age difference at all.

As if their romance wasn't enough to propel the story forward the author also includes a truly unique mystery involving Adam and his father. I don't want to give anything away, but I was turning the pages like mad to find out how the situation was resolved. Another thing I appreciated about Half: Life was how the author treated the issue of gay teens. Like other recent books including Rainbow High and Geography Club the teens in this story aren't angst ridden over being gay. Which isn't to say they live in some perfect world, only that the characters themselves are much more comfortable with themselves than teens even ten years ago. Very refreshing. All in all, an excellent first novel and I look forward to reading more of Mr. Krach's work!

"That's life...isn't it? You never know the half of it"
Half-Life is a pretty astute character study of young, urban school-age gay guys. The novel is packed with great, lively characters that mischievously weave in and out of each other's lives and affect each other in unexpected ways. For a first novel, Half-Life is a major achievement for Aaron Krach - he has a keen understanding of intergenerational gay relationships, providing an extremely perceptive account of modern gay life and the sorts of issues that gay people, particularly younger gay people face today.

Set amongst the highways and byways of Los Angeles, Krach places his characters in the fictional suburb of Angelito - "a stretch of land near downtown L.A. unnoticeable because of its ordinariness." Angelito is a place of strip malls and two and three-bedroom houses "connected by driveways to blackish streets." Adam Westman and his best friend Dart are two local gay boys, who like spending lazy afternoons talking and hanging out at the local 7-Eleven, waiting for school to finish so they can get on with their lives.

The narrative centers on Adam, who is just turning eighteen and is on the verge of manhood. He lives with his disheartened and miserable father, Greg, and his creative younger sister, Sandra. When Greg unexpectedly dies of a drug overdose, the family is fractured and Greg and Sandra are forced to live with their self-obsessed mother Vivian who works in the local movie industry exporting B-grade television shows to Eastern Europe. Along the way, Adam meets Jeff, a 38 year old, masculine, sexy policeman who likes to surf in his spare time. Jeff showers Adam with romance and attention and forces Adam to come to terms, not just with his father's death, but the possibility of having "true love" in his life for the first time.

We follow Adam, Dart, and a rich cast of supporting characters as they live through an unforgettable summer together and find the answer to many of life's challenges. For Adam and Jeff, romance is "forward motion that is guaranteed; but it can take forever to go a mile, and they will probably spend a lot of time standing still. Waiting." I liked the intelligent, sensitive wordplay between Jeff and Adam. Krach takes his time setting up their relationship and lets their romance develop at a leisurely and unhurried pace.

Half-Life combines a coming of age story and a teenage romance with a judicious look at the challenges that young gay people face in life. The challenge for Adam is to overcome his piece of pure sadness - the one he was born with, not the one created by has dad's passing. Sadness joined with melancholy has intersected with self-pity dropping him off at "a fork in the road." With an intelligent use of dialogue and economical, literate style that is also engaging and lyrical, Krach shows us that love can be scary and forbidding, yet also raw, fabulous and sexy. Some readers may find the novel thin on plot and the pacing a little slow, but the wonderfully three-dimensional characters and the fact that Adam, Jeff and Dart are so comfortable within themselves, more than make up for the book's shortcomings. Mike Leonard September 04.