February 1, 2024
Thompson debuts with a coming-of-age story of love and tragic loss framed by a series of car crashes. Theron was there for the first two crashes--one during the summer he met Jake as a teenager in rural New Hampshire, and the second six years later in NYC--but he's not there for the crash that kills Jake. Prepub Alert.
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May 13, 2024
Thompson debuts with the moody and moving chronicle of a complicated friendship between two young men. In the first sentence, the reader learns from Theron, the 30-something narrator, that his friend Jake recently died in a car accident. Theron then rewinds to 2004, when he’s 15 and he follows his father from Los Angeles to New Hampshire after his parents split. He gets a job at the local hardware store, where Jake, who’s two years older, is the manager. Their meeting is a “sea change” for Theron, who feels a “spike of desire” for Jake as they smoke weed and bond over their love of Metallica. From there, Theron’s obsession with Jake propels the nonlinear narrative as it touches down at different points in their timeline—there’s heartache when Jake bails on plans to visit him in Los Angeles in 2009, and excitement when they finally reunite in New York City a few years later, where Theron has recently graduated from NYU and is in an on-and-off relationship with his girlfriend. Thompson skillfully captures Theron’s vulnerability, especially when the two men finally act on their mutual attraction and later when Theron deals with the impact of Jake’s death. This marks Thompson as a writer to watch. Agent: Duvall Osteen, UTA.
June 1, 2024
A young man has an emotional and sexual awakening through a fellow troubled teen. Thompson's debut is narrated by Theron, who at 15 is forced to shuttle between the East and West coasts after his parents' divorce. Spending a summer with his tough-as-nails dad in New Hampshire, he brings along a bag of pot brownies to cope; when dad finds it, Theron is made to work at a hardware store. But his ostensible boss is 17-year-old Jake, a fellow stoner and aspiring musician who recognizes that the store is a tax write-off and runs things lazily when he's not robbing the till. So ensues "a kind of permanent hang," with the two bonding over heavy metal, weed, and hard-to-articulate sexual feelings. Thompson writes beautifully and with a sense of tension about having nothing to do--no simple trick. And he's graceful when considering young male insecurity and self-loathing. ("He was beautiful. I was a brace--faced gremlin with boy tits and stalagmites of cystic acne ridging my cheeks.") Over time, this dirtbag Call Me by Your Name turns more perilous and gloomy. Jake is prone to vehicular calamities, and though Theron gets older, attending college and pursuing a relationship with a woman, he's not much wiser. A reconnection with Jake becomes a boozy, druggy push-and-pull as he sorts out his feelings, and poor choices and insecure selfishness abound. ("I wanted to control both of them. I wanted them both to give me their focus.") Yet Theron remains a sympathetic character, and Thompson recognizes that though sexual identity doesn't always arrive like a thunderbolt, or settle into simple definitions, the process can be all-consuming. The arc of the story's plot is largely tragic, but the mood is bighearted, revealing the power of the first flush of romantic and erotic connection. A brash and well-turned coming-of-age tale.
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July 1, 2024
After his parents' divorce, Theron David Alden moved to L.A. with his mom. Now 15, unsure of who he is and trying to outgrow the childhood nickname Davey, he spends the summer back in rural New Hampshire with his father. Theron's dad gets him a job at a local hardware store, where he meets Jake, a 16-year-old from Texas who is everything Theron wants to be. The boys are fast friends, spending their days stealing petty cash, driving around, and drinking in the parking lot outside Walmart. Theron recognizes his feelings for Jake expanding beyond the platonic, though Jake is engaged to his fianc�e, Jess, who's back in Texas. When the summer comes to an abrupt end, each boy leaves New Hampshire behind. Reuniting nearly a decade later in New York to see one of their favorite bands, both men have settled into themselves yet struggle with similar demons. With beautifully crafted prose and lived-in dialogue, Thompson's debut novel captures the joy and agony of first love alongside the struggle to understand and become oneself.
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