With his 17 year old protagonist Garner shows there’s a lot more to be said about adolescence, adulthood and identity than most coming of age stories suggest. The voice he gives Isaac is both tender and tough, his feelings entirely understandable in their complexity, and the confusion of his entry into the gay world resonates with me still. We indeed are always ‘coming of age’ in the same way we’re always coming out. It’s a bravura piece of writing that deserves a huge audience.