Corpus Christi, Texas - Paperback

by Cruz del Castillo (Author)

It is the summer of 1996-the hottest American summer on record since 1974. The cemented pavements and highways radiate an extreme and sickening heat. The grasslands are coarse and dry. The air smells like human sweat and diesel exhaust. The cross on top of the mountain stands highly erected watching this contemporary inferno unfold.

Growing up in a Mexican Catholic-constrained household in Corpus Christi, Texas, Tony Prado Suárez has believed all his life that God had cursed him as a homosexual since the day he was born.

It's Tony's first summer back in Corpus Christi after finishing his freshman year at Arizona State University. Tony spends his days driving through the streets and places of this damned town in hopes of confronting his past.

The trashy motels on the side of the freeways remind him of the fling he had with a 32-year-old truck driver 'Jimmy' at the age of eighteen.

The bars and saloons remind him of the racism and abuse he endured when he worked at 'The Texan Drive-In'.

The shadow of his rapist follows him everywhere he goes.

Tony unexpectedly falls in love with Axel, the lifeguard at the Salvador Perez Public Swimming Pool. They have their first clandestine hookup in the locker room of the pool. This electric spark quickly develops into an emotionally intense relationship. Tony and Axel's ardent sexual cravings fuel a purely anarchic and hedonistic lifestyle.

As events take an unexpectedly sinister turn one summer night, Tony's secret desire to kill his rapist resurfaces, and he is forced to make a gut-wrenching decision that will alter his life permanently.