King of Angels

A Novel of Childhood’s End and Sexual Awakening in Kennedy-Era Savannah, Georgia

By: Perry Brass

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

“I laughed and I cried but most of all I thought and I remembered how it was growing up in one of the most turbulent periods of American history when communities tried to come together. Accepting ourselves is part of it all and Perry Brass helps us with that in his brilliant new book. Now back to read it all over again.” Reviews by Amos Lassen. (reviewsbyamoslassen.com) “'King of Angels' might be compared to Harper Lee’s 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' substituting the turbulent 1960s with Lee’s depression-era setting and replacing Catholic-Jewish antagonism and homophobia for the race relations that drive To Kill a Mockingbird . . . By making the narrator of 'King of Angels' a slightly older gay boy, Brass introduces a twist to the Southern coming of age story.” Lambda Literary Foundation Newsletter, June 14, 2012. “Brass' rich descriptions verge on poetic, they remain specific to emotions and action . . . [this] allegory, albeit written in an almost flat syntax, deftly portrays the voice of an awkward teenage narrator. A pivotal tragedy in 'King of Angels' serves as symbolic, surprising and inevitable.” Bay Area Reporter. The early ‘60s “Mad Men” era were turbulent: things were shooting out of the closet at lightning velocity. Men were sexual animals, but women were supposed to stay moms and wives. "Playboy" hit the newsstands. Sexually-rumored John F. Kennedy was president. The Beatles arrived in the U.S. There was a dark side: the Ku Klux Klan, racial violence, razor-edged homophobia lurking behind the Playboy lifestyle. You were either a player or a Los Vegas comedian’s fag joke—and 12-year-old Benjamin Rothberg, growing up in Isle of Hope, Georgia, in the marshes outside Savannah, realizes this fast. Child of a mixed marriage between a beautiful blonde Southern-WASP mother and a passionate, handsome New York-Jewish father, Benjy will soon be plunged into the sexual underground of boys at Holy Nativity Military Academy, a Catholic school in Savannah run by an order of monks with secrets of their own: alcoholism, pedophilia, and whispered doubts about their faith and calling. The monks are compassionate, racially progressive, and dedicated to educating boys; they are also ruthless when they need to be—and determined to keeping the school going, even after the death of a young handsome Puerto Rican student has been linked to a “closer than normal” relationship with an upperclassman football player. Benjamin Rothberg finds himself in the middle of all this as he tries to sort out his own identity and discovers a connection with an older “out” Jewish teen trying to survive in Savannah’s queer sexual underground, as a genuine gay community comes out of the darkest shadows. You will never forget "King of Angels." Its characters will become your closest friends, and seem so real to you that you will remember them years after you finish the book. Winner: 2012, “Ippy” Independent Publisher Book Award, Bronze Medal Young Adult Fiction. Finalist, Ferro-Grumley Fiction Award, 2013 (Ferro-Grumley Foundation)