Rex, a husband and father, makes an unintentional error. Will Rex get away with his terrible, taboo-busting
mistake?
This opening premise is the starting gun to a rollicking ride through London of the late 1980s and early
1990s, in a literary novel that focuses on human frailty, love, marriage, family bonds, gay sex, betrayal,
alcoholism, illness and death. Although aspects of the novel are richly ironic and even comedic, it also
deals with challenging themes, not least HIV/AIDS.
Matt Bishop wrote The Boy Made the Difference because very few (if any) literary novels are set against
the narrative backdrop of the HIV/AIDS crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s, which had a profound
and lasting impact on the gay community. All of the proceeds from the book sales will be donated to
his late mother’s charity – the Bernardine Bishop Appeal (part of CLIC Sargent – a charity that helps
children, young people and their families who are suffering the effects of cancer).
