Full Circle [Hardcover]

Ned Brummel has always had a love for history, so when his partner Thayer encourages him to apply for a position at the University of New England, Ned jumps at the opportunity. The past is important for Ned; after all, the man has lived through one of the most tumultuous periods in American history - the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, the rise of the 70's gay liberation movement, and of course the scourge of AIDS.

Ned hasn't seen Jack, his childhood friend in years. They parted hurriedly in New York when Ned confessed his love for him, the adoration shaped by an angel's message, a dream of Jack, showing him dying from love. The past, however, has apparently decided not to stay buried. An urgent telephone call from Jack opens a door that Ned thought to be long shut and locked.

At best, Ned has spent years trying to erase his tarnished memories, and what remains are faded possibly beyond recognition. Now he must travel to Chicago, for his best friend Andy - a companion to both Ned and Jack for almost thirty years - is dying. Both friendships were laid to rest when Ned came to Maine to start his life over again, when he left behind everything he knew and everything he was, to become something else.

Born almost exactly on the same day, Ned and Jack grew up suburban 1950's Philadelphia at a time when most new little about homosexuality. A funny thing, however, happened around the twilight time of thirteen. Ned's head began to swim with feelings of loss, coupled with a growing excitement he couldn't explain. Realizing that both he and Jack were gay was only tempered by the fact that they hadn't a clue how to act upon their feelings.

The boys developed a powerful and mysterious bond and at fifteen they fell in love with each other. Ned, caught between his affection for Jack and a society, which gives him no direction, felt as though he had woken up and found almost everyone else gone, having no idea how he and Jack could find their way on their own. They muddled through with the sex as best they could, "just two boys who loved one another."

It is in 1969 at college when their relationship faces its greatest test. Purportedly straight, the young and handsome farm boy Andy Kowalski casts a seductive spell over the boys, particularly Ned, who eventually gives way to his cautious desires. Only through Andy, can Ned begin to "crack from the inside out," sloughing off the old ways of thinking and being. And although Jack had been Ned's best friend for nineteen years and his lover for four, Andy is the man that Ned wants and Ned is all too willing to enter into the role as provider of sexual favors.

Author Michael Thomas Ford charts a formidable course as he skillfully integrates this fated trio with the convergence of world events, their lives shattered by the conflict in Vietnam, and the AIDS epidemic of the late seventies and the activism of the nineteen eighties. Covering almost fifty years of American life, the author presents the world from a uniquely gay perspective, detailing all the confusion, denial, anger and finally acceptance of a world where a group of people must fight to fit in.

Full Circle is undoubtedly a novel of memory, where remembrances are held like "a living scrapbook" and where Ned especially, wonders through, touching and seeing. But this is also a tale of history and how history can shape our life perspectives, and along with this, Ford manages to bring so many figures - pivotal to the gay rights movement - to life.

The author's prose is always perceptive, profoundly compassionate and nonjudgmental, as he focuses on Ned, Jack and Andy's individual struggles for connection and also for sexual liberation as they turn from boys into men. Although these three may have walked the same road together for many years, faced difficult choices, encountered crossroads, and traveled in different directions, friendship and love, and the unpredicted prize of forgiveness, will always bind them together as one. Mike Leonard July 06.

This is what you want from a gay novel. Sweeping stories of people's lives, who just happen to be gay as well. Michael Thomas Ford writes great novels and Full Circle is second only to Tales of the City as one of the great gay novels.

This has to be one of the best novels I have read. Michael Thomas Ford writes with great care to detail, not an overpowering amount, but enough to ensure your mind grasps the scene. I fantastic novel with ups and dows all over the place that will keep it open in your hands... The storey is a great one. Not the typical coming of age storey that seem to be flooding the gay literary market. This storey is heart warming in places, heart shattering in others. One minute very sexualy exciting, the next bringing sadness to your eyes. An mazing read that I recomend for anyone looking for a more grown up read...

I am a big fan of MTF and am looking forward to his new novel being released in the UK...