Romance
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‘Go on, Freddie, tell the whole story. Remember that last night when you were together. You knew then that your love had made you both immortal: here’s your chance to tell it.’
Suddenly confronted by memories of his first great love, Freddie McNaughton recounts how, together, they surmounted all obstacles until fate intervened.
It’s the 1960s and the world is changing, identities being redefined and loyalties challenged. At his single-sex Catholic public school the volatile sixteen year-old Freddie is discovering things about himself which he doesn’t know how to handle. But falling in love with the beautiful Paul changes all that: they bond, and dream of a life together. They adopt Walt Whitman’s famous poem ‘We Two Boys Together Clinging’ which becomes their ‘national anthem’. Their intensity spills over in their response to art, music and poetry.
Telling his story through a series of letters written fifty years after the event and discovered after his death, Freddie remembers the struggles that they had to overcome: not least those of faith, identity and loyalty. Yet, even as heartbreak lies in wait, this absorbing tale does not have a tragic end: the two firmly believe that their love for each other has made them immortal.
Here's what readers have to say about this book....
This is a beautiful story of self discovery and young love between two boys captured in time and poetry. It is set at a time when homosexuality had only just become legal between men aged 21 and over, in England. The characters live in a somewhat rarefied world of wealth, boarding schools and catholicism in 1960s, so some terms may be unfamiliar and the author expects the reader to trust him, and go on the journey. The background pales as Freddie experiences the dawning of sexual self discovery, the thrill of falling in love, and the urgency and passion of youth; all of which are expressed with great tenderness and delicacy. I loved it. First loves are the prerogative of the young, not the straight.
