Box Hill
A Story of Low Self-Esteem
by Adam Mars-Jones
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"In Box Hill, a vivid coming-of-age novel, a young man suddenly wakes up to his gay self--on his eighteenth birthday, when he receives the best gift ever: love and sex. In the woodsy cruising grounds of Box Hill, chubby Colin literally stumbles over glamorous Ray--ten years older, leather-clad, cool, handsome, a biker, and a top. (Colin, if largely unformed, is nevertheless decidedly a bottom.) Colin narrates his love--conveying how mind-blowing being with Ray is--in comically humble-pie terms. "If there are leaders then there must be followers, and I had followership skills in plenty just waiting to be tapped. To this day I can't see a fat kid in shorts without wanting to rush over and give him what comfort I can. To tell him it won't always be like this." Mars-Jones uses Colin's naivete to give a fresh view of the world and of love. Before long, however, homophobia, class, family strife, and loss rear their ugly heads. Yet in the end, it seems Colin's modest view oddly takes in the widest horizon: he learns that "people can care about anything." A surprise and a pleasure, Box Hill is an intensely moving short novel"--
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Subjects
Fiction, general, English literature, Gay men, Fiction, Interpersonal relations, Queer, LGBT, Gay, Historical Fiction, Contemporary, Romance, Historical, Literary Fiction, M M Romance, Coming of agePlaces
Box Hill (Surrey - England)Times
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Box Hill: A Story of Low Self-Esteem
2020, New Directions
Paperback
in English
- First New Directions edition
0811230058 9780811230056
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Box Hill: A Story of Low Self-Esteem
2020, New Directions Publishing Corporation
in English
0811230066 9780811230063
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Book Details
First Sentence
"Box Hill where the bikers go, on a Sunday."
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Work Description
In, a vivid coming-of-age novel, a young man suddenly wakes up to his gay self—on his eighteenth birthday, when he receives the best gift ever: love and sex. In the woodsy cruising grounds of Box Hill, chubby Colin literally stumbles over glamorous Ray—ten years older, leather-clad, cool, handsome, a biker, and a top. (Colin, if largely unformed, is nevertheless decidedly a bottom.) Colin narrates his love—conveying how mind-blowing being with Ray is—in comically humble-pie terms. “If there are leaders then there must be followers, and I had followership skills in plenty just waiting to be tapped. To this day I can’t see a fat kid in shorts without wanting to rush over and give him what comfort I can. To tell him it won’t always be like this.”
Mars-Jones uses Colin’s naivete to give a fresh view of the world and of love. Before long, however, homophobia, class, family strife, and loss rear their ugly heads. Yet in the end, it seems Colin’s modest view oddly takes in the widest horizon: he learns that “people can care about anything.” A surprise and a pleasure, Box Hill is an intensely moving short novel.
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| January 24, 2026 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
| December 5, 2025 | Edited by bitnapper | merge authors |
| December 5, 2025 | Edited by bitnapper | merge authors |
| December 5, 2025 | Edited by bitnapper | Merge works (MRID: 256108) |
| November 17, 2022 | Created by ImportBot | import new book |