In Brendan Wolf (St. Martin's Press), Brian Malloy, author of the novel The Year of Ice, has delivered on the promise of his first book with a complicated, heartfelt follow-up about a man who has created a new name for himself (along with several personas), leaving the reader asking, "Who is the real Brendan Wolf?"

As a child, the 35-year-old Wolf loved the book Into the Wild, the saga of a young man who leaves human society and lives alone (and finally dies) in the Alaskan wilderness. Just as the hero of Into the Wild changed his name to Alexander Supertramp, Malloy's protagonist is inspired to give himself the name Brendan Wolf: Brendan, from an Irish explorer; Wolf, from the famous Jack London novel The Call of the Wild. London's novel is, of course, the definitive "boy book" of the American wilderness.

But Brendan soon finds taking a new name comes with complications. To whom does he reveal his true self? And who is he truly?

Brendan's incarcerated brother, Ian, and Cynthia, Ian's live-wire, mixed-race wife, mastermind a scam to steal the proceeds from a right-to-life fundraiser. They want Brendan to drive the getaway truck, promising enough cash for all of them to flee to Mexico and make a fresh start. At the same time, Brendan unwittingly becomes the caretaker for Marv, an older gay man, while simultaneously falling in love with an unassuming, socially aware gay man named Sean. Brendan's new lover knows him only as Pierre and has no inkling about the truth of Brendan's life.

Malloy's gift is such that we care about the fate of this outsider as he makes bad decisions and struggles to do the right thing despite being surrounded by bad elements steering him toward a life in jail.

The book also provides moments of lyricism, as in the scene when Brendan and Sean go camping near a Minnesota lake: "What amazes him most is the silence. It washes away the ugliness, the bitterness, the world-weary cynicism. It makes him sane … this kind of sane is the crystal clarity that enables him to spend hours watching the soft ripples of the water as the breeze skims the lake. This is the sanity that savors the lonely call of the loon, the sight of the otter, his eyes aglow at the end of the day."

In fact, it is this unique setting that makes this book special. I can't recall recently reading a novel set in Minnesota; the people portrayed are not toned Chelsea gym bunnies or shallow Los Angeles actor-wannabes. These are typical Middle Americans of all sorts: kind people who don't know they are kind, Christian fanatics who aren't very Christian, old people, plain people, people floating in and out of jail, villains and good guys.

There is strange beauty in this book, too. Malloy has a talent for creating fascinating stories that seem cinematic in their purity and focus. And in his word-painted portrait of Middle America, we witness some of the forces currently making life for gay people so difficult. This isn't to say Brendan Wolf is a pessimistic book — though its unexpected ending is sad — but it is honest and affecting.