Full Circle [Hardcover]

Michael Thomas Ford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2006

This is a powerful saga of three friends and lovers from legendary author Michael Thomas Ford. Ford's most extraordinary novel yet honestly and lovingly explores the lives and bonds of three men in a saga spanning almost 60 years. History professor Ned Brummel is living happily with his partner of 12 years in small-town Maine when he receives a call from his estranged friend - Jack - telling him that another friend - Andy - is very ill and possibly near death. The news shatters the peace of his world and awakens memories that have lain dormant for years. As Ned boards a plane for Chicago on his way to his friend's bedside, he embarks on another journey, into the past, examining the major events and small moments that have shaped his life and his relationships with these two very different, very important men. Growing up together through the restrictive 1950s and confusing '60s, Jackson "Jack" Grace and Ned Brummel took solace in their love for each other. But when they arrive at college in 1969 and meet handsome farm boy Andy Kowalski, everything changes. Despite Andy's apparent heterosexuality, both Jack and Ned fall hard for him, straining their close friendship. Soon, the three men will become involved in a series of intense liaisons and bitter betrayals, coming together and flying apart as they alternately hurt, love, shape and heal one another over the course of years. From the heady drug- and sex-fuelled days of San Francisco in the wild '70s to the haunting spectre of AIDS in the '80s and the righteous activism of the '90s, their relationship transforms and grows, reflecting the changes occurring around them. Now, together and in the most crucial and intimate of settings, Ned, Jack and Andy have another chance to confront the damage of the past and embrace the bonds of friendship and love that have stood the test of time.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Following his two previous engaging gay romances (Last Summer and Looking for It), Lambda Award-winner Ford brings loquacious elan to a novel with more heft. This tale of adolescent lust, unrequited love, fumbled friendship and domestic contentment arcs across five decades: Ned Brummel and Jack Grace, best friends since their 1950s boyhoods, have been estranged for years when the imminent death (heart attack, not AIDS) of Andy Kowalski, the charismatic cad they both fell for during college, draws them back together. The trio's lives, recounted in lengthy flashbacks, intertwine somewhat melodramatically through the years: Ned and Andy serve together in Vietnam in the '60s, Ned shares a Castro-neighborhood apartment with Jack and Andy in the sex-drenched '70s, and all three meet again in New York as AIDS ravages the gay community through the '80s-before an accretion of heartbreak and bitterness drive them apart. The characters' many brushes with homosexual history-Harvey Milk trolling for votes in gay bars, the unfurling of the first Rainbow Flag, the sexual energy of early ACT UP meetings-will resonate with gay readers.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Ford expands his repertoire with this brimful first novel about life, love, and self-discovery over the course of a steamy Provincetown summer...a satisfying beach book--and a pleasant fiction debut for Ford."

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Kensington; First Edition edition (June 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0758210574
• ISBN-13: 978-0758210579
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #449,688 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael Thomas Ford is the author of more than fifty books in genres ranging from humor to horror, literary fiction to nonfiction. His work for adult readers includes the best-selling novels What We Remember, Changing Tides, Full Circle, Looking for It and Last Summer, and his five essay collections in the "Trials of My Queer Life" series. As a writer for young adults he is the author of Suicide Notes and Z (forthcoming in 2010), and under the name Isobel Bird he wrote the popular "Circle of Three" series. In 2009 he signed a 3-book deal with Random House for a series featuring Jane Austen as a modern-day vampire. The first book in the series, Jane Bites Back, will be published in January, 2010. His work has been nominated for 11 Lambda Literary Awards, twice winning for Best Humor Book and twice for Best Romance Novel. He was also nominated for a Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Award (for his novel The Dollhouse That Time Forgot) and a Gaylactic Spectrum Award (for his short story "Night of the Werepuss").

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Social History Depicted through Three Characters, November 6, 2006

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Full Circle (Hardcover)

FULL CIRCLE is one of those books that satisfies on many levels. First, it is a novel about the struggles facing gay men from childhood to advanced age in a manner that reads more like a non-biased fiction story than most gay novels. Second, author Michael Thomas Ford writes well, allowing his complex story to unfold in elegant prose that takes as much time embracing the beauty of living as it does in depicting the sour notes of existing. And third, it serves as a fine historical survey of life in the US from the 1960s through the end of the century - no mean feat in itself, but when woven so carefully with the intertwining lives of the three main characters it becomes a scrapbook of memories both good and bad of the times in which we have lived.

The plot is well outlined but other reviewers: suffice it to say it is the story of two close friends - Ned and Jack - whose childhood needs and differences bond them in a union that accompanies them through the coming out phase in college, through the bliss of a relationship, through the introduction of a third 'straight' young college man Andy who focuses his life on living at the expense of others but eventually becomes their communal lover, and accompanies the new triad through the horrors of Vietnam, of life in San Francisco and the era of drugs and free sex, of AIDS, of loss of loved ones, of impaired relationships, of the sociopolitical climate that resulted in the Act Up phase, through the fears and problems of the 1990s. It is the resilience of this friendship that carries the book through all of its avenues of the experiences that life challenges us all to survive or succumb.

If there is a flaw in this long novel it is the author's tendency for name dropping, as though mentioning Bernadette Peters and Ileana Cotrubas etc will lend credence to the story: for this reader that is unnecessary information flaunting. A minor point this, but one that stops the eye from the otherwise generously warm and fascinating flow of a story very much worth telling. Reading FULL CIRCLE does indeed drive the reader to a hunger for reading the author's other books, and that is always a solid marker for evaluating a book. Grady Harp, November 06

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An epic baby-boomer gay love story, beautifully told!, June 9, 2006

By 

Bob Lind "camelwest" (Phoenix, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Full Circle (Hardcover)

Neil Brummel is a 56 year old history professor, living in small town Maine with Thayer, his lover of twelve years. An unexpected phone call from his boyhood friend, Jack, awakens memories (both good and bad) in Neil, and Thayer inquires about the obvious effect the call had on him. To sort out the memories in his own mind, and realizing that Thayer deserves to know about his past, Neil spends the rest of the book relating his past with Jack, who was his first lover, and their mutual friend Andy, who is likely responsible for changing both of their lives tremendously over the past forty years. It's a story of lifetime male bonding, of two inseparable boyhood friends dealing with teenage lust, peer pressure and unrequitted love, going on to college and its natural rebellion and experimentation, interrupted by the reality of the VietNam, which they deal with in very different ways, then on to adulthood, seemingly changed into roles they would not have imagined before.

Through these three characters, the author expertly captures the spirit of the gay "everyman" through the late 60's war protests, the 70's growth of the Castro district in San Francisco, and the devastating presence and frustrations of the AIDS epidemic in New York City during the 1980's. But, above all, "Full Circle" is an epic love story of the ages, realistic and wonderfully told by an author who previously enterained me with his insightful, humorous essays, then impressed me further with his two excellent earlier novels, though this one is absolutely his best work to date. It is also somewhat unique among current gay fiction works, in that it tells the story of a group of gay men who are not the usual "twentysomething" or "thirtysomething" focus of such novels, but are baby boomers in their late fifties. While it will be especially embraced by gay men in that age group, anyone can and will appreciate this heartfelt tale of love, friendship and lifetime bonding. I call it a masterpiece, and give it five bold stars out of five.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Love him who with love is glowing", July 19, 2006

By 

M. J Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 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.