Grit, Texas Is A Helluva Long Way From Christopher Street… That's Manhattan hand model Clu Latimore's first thought upon his return to an all-too-familiar rural hometown with Chris, his laid-back lover, in tow. Mere moments after his arrival, Clu is up to his stylish cut in problems that include caring for a dying mother and her pack of prize-winning Chihuahuas, and of course, initiating the incredulous Chris into the reality of life in the land of blue bonnets, barbecue, and Baptists.
Naturally, Clu can't turn to his siblings for help. His eternally-broke redneck older brother Jaston is obsessed with renting heavy machinery in hopes of unearthing treasure behind the abandoned house next door. And his perpetually pregnant—yet still childless—sister Laine has troubles of her own, thanks to Sherrod, her jailbird accountant husband. It's solely up to Clu to lend support to their mother, Bettie Jean, who is on the verge of not only death, but marriage to Brother Ramirez, a Mexican-American evangelist.
Just when Clu's all but ruled out suicide, along comes his former piano teacher and Grit's answer to Brooke Astor, Miss Oveta Canfield. It seems Miss Oveta intends to transform the Espinosa County Livestock Barn into a dinner theater with a little help from Mr. Jeffrey, her dwarflike sixty-something hairdresser-slash-adopted son. Before you can say "Agamemnon," Clu has been recruited to direct a country-western musical version of the Greek tragedy—starring none other than Mr. Jeffrey's shockingly virile offspring, Preston, a beefy blonde studlet whose mission in life, until now, has been tending the gardens around the pillared pink Canfield mansion.
Before Clu's journey is over, there will be a wedding, a birth, a funeral and, of course, a no-holds-barred production of "Agamemnon—The Musical" that proves nobody is immune to Preston's seductive charms: not the audience, not Chris, not even Clu himself. Convinced he's seen everything, Clu can't help wondering how long a couple of gay New Yorkers can possibly survive in a dry county crawling with Bible thumpers, fire ants, and temptation in the last place they ever expected to find it...
William Jack Sibley is a screenwriter and playwright who divides his time between Los Angeles and a ranch in Texas. A former writer for Interview magazine and TV's "The Guiding Light," several of his screenplays are in various stages of "Hollywood Hell" and (should he live long enough) will be coming to a cineplex near you—Amor, Dead Giveaway, December Story, Approximate Lives, and the award-winning Where All the Rattlesnakes Are Born.
