Foolish Fire [Paperback]

Guy Willard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 2000

Guy Willard is your all-American boy, a good-looking, popular teenager with only one hidden secret... a flaming desire for other boys. This book of his sexual adventures is set at Freedom High School, where he inches his way out of the closet through a series of humorous and poignant episodes. From "Physical Education" to "Technically a Virgin", Guy's personal story is thoroughly true to life: always sexy, but very human.

Table of Contents

Side 1
Pin-ups
Physical Education
How I Spent My Summer Vacation
Queerbait
The Music Lesson
Graffiti on the Boys' Room Wall
Teen Confessions

Side 2
Girls, Girls, Girls
(I Don't Wanna Be) An 'A' Student
Class Flirt
Technically a Virgin
The Heterosexual Blues
Boys Who Never Kiss and Tell
Paper Balls

Product Details

• Paperback: 220 pages
• Publisher: GMP (March 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1902852028
• ISBN-13: 978-1902852027
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,409,713 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Only one step short of Five Stars, January 4, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Foolish Fire (Paperback)

The definitive Coming Of Age Novel? Perhaps.

A major triumph of angst, and I am looking forward to the next book. But what a shame Guy's teen years pass so fast. I wanted so much more time with him.

Is he gay? Will he get the guy? Will he get the girl? I'm not going to give a thing away, but the book keeps being unexpected.

Now I want a sequel, or a set of sequels. From the viewpoint of some of the other characters. Especially from Mark's viewpoint.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow, January 22, 2005

By 

John Jones "john" (New York, New York United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Foolish Fire (Paperback)

This has been one of the best books I have read that involves Gay characters. Guy Willard takes you back to when he first realizes he's gay, in his 7th grade PE class, and brings his trials and tribulations in realizing that he is a gay man. The book's so steamy and it keeps you reading on and on, and the ending is just so startling, that it makes you really sad that it's over. It's one of those books where you had wished you were the character in the book. I think this book was very nostalgic to me, because as I kept reading the book, I kept looking back on my own life. And there were so many similarities, and things that I wouldn't admit to myself that Guy willard was admitting in this book. And I'm Still 17, and Guy's character is 18 by the time the book finishes, and in a way, i saw my own future too. It's a really good book, and I recommend it for anyone gay or straight. But it's definitely a gay must-read.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Riveting First Person POV Novel, December 5, 2002

By 

Mark Ian Kendrick (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Foolish Fire (Paperback)

It was with an unusual mixture of voyeurism on my part and incredibly lush first-person writing on the author's part that riveted me to Foolish Fire. From page one, I became absolutely fascinated watching Guy (the main character) develop as an adolescent, albeit with a terribly skewed view of himself. I couldn't pull myself out of this tale although, as the story progresses, he becomes a tragic gay anti-hero...something I don't normally like reading about.

The notion that being gay would eventually 'go away' causes Guy to become incredibly narcissistic and has him spinning highly erotic fantasies throughout the novel. This story isn't about him wallowing in feeling of guilt or remorse while this all plays out (religious guilt plays not one iota in this tale), but rather about him plunging into his own psycho-sexual development at the hormonal speed of a teenager, while actively squelching his true feelings.

Tom Boggs, the author of this story (Guy Willard is a pen name), proves what great writing is all about. He very accurately captures the first pangs of the denial about growing up gay, then embellishes them to create a wonderfully tragic character that I'll remember for a good long time.

BTW, the second book in this series is called 'The Mirrors of Narcissus', and is even better than this story!