Gay men do not shy away from sordid passions in the short story collection. Friendships are propped up by alcohol and drugs, and boys fend off adulthood as if maturity were a harsh prison sentence. Thomas Kearnes's transgressive fiction is the all of the early morning sky, breathtaking in its color, but situated over a harsh landscape of scrub brush, dilapidated roadside honky-tonk bars, and anxious men looking for someone to spend the night with, sometimes for hasty love, sometimes the necessity of a warm bed.