The End of it All

A Novel

by Alex Alvarez


Formats

Hardcover
$28.49
$21.99
E-Book
$3.99
Softcover
$17.99
$13.99
Hardcover
$21.99

Book Details

Language : English
Publication Date : 11/4/2009

Format : Hardcover
Dimensions : 6x9
Page Count : 334
ISBN : 9781449016708
Format : E-Book
Dimensions : E-Book
Page Count : 334
ISBN : 9781449016715
Format : Softcover
Dimensions : 6x9
Page Count : 334
ISBN : 9781449016692

About the Book

This is a story of existential crises. Nick Stanton is a contemporary gay man who is searching for answers to questions he is unable to articulate. Part One: While having drinks with his boyfriend in a New York bar, Nick is confronted with a sharp awareness of time. In this section, we follow Nick’s fragmenting consciousness as he begins to assess his life with his boyfriend, Giovanni. There are several breaks into the past. Part Two: This section follows Nick through a linear twenty-four period before he drives to home to Florida alone. It is a chapter of sexual abysses. He lunches with his best friend, April, and tries to express what he’s going through. April suggests therapy. They extend their late lunch to happy hour. They meet a group of Wall Street twenty-something and Nick feels out of place. He breaks from the group and grudgingly befriends two college students from Michigan. During his drive to Florida, he has a self-abasing sexual encounter at a rest stop. Part Three: We are introduced to his family and old friends. Nick experiences them all under a new awareness. The unexpected appearance of his first love produces a fresh possibility, but he’s crushed again. He’s involved in a fatal car accident on the drive back to New York. Part Four: Nick’s recovery and culpability. In hospital he meets a young man from the accident. Is terrified over the intense human turn of guilt and responsibility. Nick returns to New York, to the former routine of life but with numbing expectation. Boyfriend leaves for Europe for two weeks and he is left to brood. Meets an idealistic young man on the subway train; suggests he could be the one but Nick gives him up. Part Five: The young man from the accident appears at his doorstep. They are together for several days and, in the end, Nick is forced to make a choice.


About the Author

Alex Alvarez was born in Miami, Florida and is of Cuban-Colombian descent. He majored in English literature at University of South Florida and concentrated his graduate studies on Henry James at Florida Atlantic University. Immediately aft er graduation, Alex spent two months traveling Europe before settling in Poland, the germ of his fi rst novel, Warsaw Central. He is currently a teaching faculty at New York City Colleges and Universities.