Frank Anthony Polito is a Brooklyn-based actor, playwright and (now) novelist. He grew up in the Detroit suburb of Hazel Park, where he played the trumpet and French horn in his high school band.

Polito put his high school experiences to good use when he wrote his 2001 play John R, which starred John Tartaglia (of Avenue Q fame). A two-character play about 80s teen Jack Paterno (Polito) and his Best Friend Brad Dayton, John R. was such a success that Polito decided to expand upon their stories and themes in a full-length novel.

Author Frank Anthony Polito (left)

The first thing that gets our attention about Band Fags! (Kensington; 352 pages; $15) of course is the book’s suggestive title. Actually, the term has been around for some time (though this critic’s life partner, who played the French horn in his school band, never heard of it).

The online slang dictionary, urbandictionary.com, defines a “Band Fag” as “one who is in the school band (usually high school), and takes great, usually overzealous pride in it.” Like other high school terms of endearment, “Band Fag” refers to one’s position in the academic community and does not necessarily refer to one’s sexual orientation.

Like the author, teens Jack Paterno and Brad Dayton played in their school band, where they met and became “Best Friends”. It is 1982, and the Reagan 80s are in full swing. At first, being in the band is the only thing that the two have in common. Straight-A student Jack lives in affluent Hazel Park while Brad - in real life Paterno’s good friend, Grad Dalton – hails from the “gritty” south side near 8 Mile.

Soon the boys realize that they have more in common than just their musical orientation, a fact that Brad learns to accept long before Jack. By the end of the hectic decade (and the novel), Jack and Brad have finished junior and senior high, and discovered facts about themselves and each other that change their lives forever.

Viewed through the eyes of Jack Paterno, Band Fags! explores the difficulties of growing up gay in the 1980s, all told with a sense of humor and affection for its characters. As you would expect from a playwright, Band Fags! shines with its clever dialogue and witty comments.

In addition to being a very good coming out story, Band Fags! serves as a microcosm of the 1980s. The decade that was synonymous with the devastation of AIDS to one gay generation was also the decade when Jack and Brad came of age. 

The list of people, gadgets, movies, television and music that Jack and Brad and their contemporaries met, admired, worked, watched or listened to marked their decade and made it famous: from Jon-Erik Hexum to Judy Tenuta, from Days of our Lives to Now Let’s Talk About Music. There is so much detail in Band Fags! that we rejoice that Polito remembered so much about his high school years. (Years that some of us did our best to forget.)

Even today there are many young Band Fags out there, trying to figure out which ways their lives are going while they remain in step with the band. Band Fags! will give them much food for thought.

Christopher Rice has caught our attention ever since his first novel, A Density of Souls, was published in 2000. A Density of Souls was a “gay thriller,” as were its successors, The Snow Garden and Light Before Day.

Author Christopher Rice (right)

Rice’s fourth novel, Blind Fall (Scribner; 290 pages; $26.00), differs from its predecessors in the fact that its main character, John Houck, is straight. He is also a U.S. Marine, a career familiar to veteran writers like Rich Merritt, but not to the civilian Mr. Rice. (Though, in all fairness, Rice and his book have benefitted from several real-life Marines’ friendship, experience and counsel.)  But Blind Fall is a thriller and it deals with gay issues -- so not much has changed after all.

Except for a prologue set in Iraq, Blind Fall takes place in California, after Houck returns to civilian life. Haunted by his kid brother’s suicide, Houck failed to prevent an explosion that maimed his company’s beloved Captain, “Lightning” Mike Bowers.

Now back in the States, Houck seeks out Captain Bowers, only to find him dead and a suspicious-looking man trying to escape from Bowers’ home. It turns out that the so-called suspect, Alex Martin, is Bowers’ partner and that the deceased captain was, you guessed it, gay. 

Most people would have run away from all that, but Houck, who feels he owes a debt to the murdered Bowers, decides to discover the truth behind the murder and to help Martin, his slain friend’s lover, avoid becoming the murderer’s next victim.

Rice’s characters are usually better than his plots and Blind Fall is no exception. All things considered, the heterosexual John Houck is a complex and compelling character. Indeed, Houck’s sexual orientation will only make the book’s central theme – that gay men like Mike Bowers can be effective warriors – more palatable to straight readers.

On the other hand, the plot is (sub)par for the course and will not attract too many readers who are not already enthralled by the handsome and talented Mr. Rice. Still, like the much-better novel Band Fags!, Blind Fall makes entertaining summer reading, which is all that we should expect from it.