Metes and Bounds Book

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Matt is Eighteen years old and living in a tiny North Carolina community that would never accept his attraction to men. He has only one role model: his uncle Tiger. Despite their families' opposition, Tiger lives happily with his lover, Mark, and eventually Mark's young son. When Matt goes to work for Tiger's beachfront business, the feelings he thought were so unusual are suddenly accepted as matter-of-fact. Finally free to experiment both sexually and emotionally, Matt begins to uncover an identity in which he's equally passionate as a lover, a surfer, and even a role model.

I highly recommend this book to all young gay men that are learning to come to grips with their sexuality.

The summer before his graduation, Matt, a cute country boy in North Carolina, reconnects with Tiger, his uncle just eight years older, at Matt's grandma's death. Tiger's mystique has haunted Matt for the ten years since Tiger left-since the time Matt spied him making out at the movies with a handsome Air Force officer. With adolescence, and a particularly strong attraction to his friend Jeep, a football player, there are things Matt wants to talk about, and he's pretty sure his uncle is the one he can confide in.

Matt tells his story, and his voice has the authentic ring of coming from the heart with all the contradictions, emotions, and enthusiasms of an eighteen year-old. After Matt graduates, his father, wanting to help his gay son find his place in life, arranges for him to live with Tiger at Nag's Head, where his uncle teaches him surveying. Off work, Tiger introduces him to beach life and surfing, which becomes his passion. It's a laid-back life, and with his uncle and uncle's lover Mark as mentors, Matt-with considerable trial and error-takes the measure of his own metes and bounds and, discovering his own emotional parameters, becomes the man he has to be.

Metes and Bounds has no intricate plot or mystery; it's episodic-and that is not a fault, because it isn't about the story, it's about the young man telling it, a coming of age biographical novel. Though not propelled by surprises, it is filled with self-revelations about Matt's relationships to family, friends, and lovers. He's a real young man with dangerous and powerful lusts he gives himself up to, described in some of the most erotic scenes in contemporary gay literature. But he's a sweet kid too. Quinn draws his character skillfully, showing Matt's vulnerable and innocent nature in scenes when others use him and in situations when his fundamental goodness proves the quality of his character. Matt is neither saint nor sinner, but a wholly believable young guy whose jealousy, spite, curiosity, love, and compassion-indeed, the full range of human emotions-are what real boys are made of. The storms that rage within him are in stark contrast to the idyllic sun, sand, and surf of the novel's coastal setting.

Living with Tiger and Mark provides a stable and wholesome gay family environment where Matt is protected, understood, and valued. His ventures outside that matrix are not always any of those things, but they are the experiences through which a young man finds his way in the world. The contrast between the two worlds he moves in provides him just enough ballast to find his balance. With each mistake he becomes more sure-footed. Even romance, to his wondrous surprise, at last works out for Matt, and the promising happy ending is a perfect note on which to top your beach blanket holiday.

Matt's surfing becomes a metaphor for his life: he takes of lot of hits in learning the ropes but, once he finds his balance, it is a real high. Still, he is reminded that he must respect its power to destroy as well. He maintains, despite some battering and life-induced skepticism, his innocent dream of security and warmth, aided by the watchful Tiger and Mark. The strength and power of their union is a beacon. A new family takes shape as Mark and Tiger take in two more 'strays' to care for. When Matt finds Jeep, he learns that love has the power to heal, not just hurt. And the reader is treated to some of the sexiest, and most tender, love making in literature.

Metes and Bounds is ultimately about families. Not the kind church and state preach, but those formed by acts of love.