A sprawling novel of gay and lesbian life in America, tracing its evolution from the closets of the 1940s to New York City's gay pride parade in 1991 and aids. Featuring dozens of characters and locations, the novel mixes the poignant with the comic. By the author of I've a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore.

"We have traded tales, my buddies and I; of affairs, encounters, secrets, fears, self-promotion-of fantasies that we make real in the telling. In this, the first volume in Ethan Mordden's acclaimed trilogy on Manhattan gay life, he introduces a small group of friends-Dennis Savage, Little Kiwi, Carlos, and the narrator, Bud-and chronicles their exploration of the new world of gay life and the new people they are in the process of becoming." --Publisher...

""What unites us, all of us, surely is brotherhood, a sense that our friendships are historic, designed to hold Stonewall together," muses on character in Ethan Mordden's Buddies. This need for friendship, for nonerotic affection, for buddies, shines forth as an American obsession from Moby-Dick through Of Mice and Men to The Sting. And American gay life has built upon and cherished these relationships, even as it has dared-perhaps its most startling...