But even though Michael feels overshadowed by his companions, their friendship sustains him.įriendship seems like enough - until Gabriel walks into The Echo one night and has eyes only for him. He's sure nobody will even notice him next to beautiful, exotic James or vivacious Becky, whose boyfriend is one of the Guardian Angels, the red-beret-wearing citizen crime fighters who have become folk heroes in the city. Meanwhile, he loses himself dancing with his friends in their favorite Hell's Kitchen club, The Echo, to the music of new artists like The Clash, Madonna and Talking Heads. Photo by Sourcebooks Fire / "We Are Lost and Found" by Helene Dunbar His first list, a parody of a teacher's assignment, is: Yet he has dreams and a penchant for list-making. Michael knows that he, too, is gay, but he keeps his head down and his heart to himself, enduring his father's homophobic rages.
Cut off from his family and his college fund, Conner is deep into the gay bathhouse and bar scene of the early 1980s. Michael's older brother, Conner, has already been kicked out of their parents' Upper West Side home for coming out in a speech at his high school graduation. In Helene Dunbar's latest young-adult novel, "We Are Lost and Found," Michael, the narrator, and his friends James and Becky struggle to navigate these dangerous waters. In 1983 Ronald Reagan was president, Stonewall was ancient history, and AIDS only a rumor of a strange "gay plague." It was an intoxicating, perilous time to be a teenager in New York, aching for love and freedom. "WE ARE LOST AND FOUND," by Helene Dunbar (Sourcebooks Fire, 304 pages, $18).
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