It's not easy for a middle-aged gay man to find love out in small-town America, so when Mike Breck blows his shot with a local guy just as lonely as he is, he's got to open up to the people around him to figure out how to angle for a second chance.
The James Alan McPherson Prize for the Novel, AWP Award Series Winner
It’s not easy for anyone to find love, let alone a middle-aged gay man in small-town America. Mike Breck works multiple part-time jobs and bickers constantly with his father, an angry conservative who moved in after Mike’s mother died. When he’s not working or avoiding his father, Mike burns time on hookup apps, not looking for anything more. Then he meets a local guy, Dave, just as lonely as he is, and starts to think that maybe he doesn’t have to be alone. Mike falls hard, and in a moment of intimacy, his pent-up hopes for a relationship rush out, leading him to look more honestly at himself and his future.
Winner of the James Alan McPherson Prize for the Novel, Ben Grossberg’s The Spring before Obergefell is about real guys who have real problems, yet still manage to find connection. Funny, serious, meditative, and hopeful, The Spring before Obergefell is a romance-but not a fairytale.
