What do you do when the person you love changes overnight?
When Neal meets Zach, it’s love at first sight—a chemical attraction. But as they get to know each other, a different kind of chemistry comes to the surface.
Lewis DeSimone’s haunting debut novel explores the meaning of identity in a world where personality can be altered by a pill, and the fate of love when chemistry is all that’s left. A moving story of love, courage, and self-realization, Chemistry signals the emergence of a bold new voice in contemporary literature.
LYRICAL AND INTENSELY MOVING. . . . DeSimone writes with passion and calm assurance about two men trying, not always successfully, to find a way to love each other. DeSimone's astute psychological analyses come to us in one beautifully written sentence after another. It's an irresistible combination.
—Robert Taylor, Author of Whose Eye Is on Which Sparrow?
—Robert Taylor, Author of Whose Eye Is on Which Sparrow?
BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN, Lewis DeSimone's Chemistry deals with mental illness with an honesty that is painfully real. 'Chemistry,' says Neal the narrator, 'is about reactions, two elements coming together and creating something new. . . . Two elements come together, and neither is the same again.' Readers of this novel will not be unmoved by the story of Neal and Zach, and of Martin, Neal's friend. We should all wish for a friend like Martin.
—Dale Edgerton, Author of Goneaway Road
—Dale Edgerton, Author of Goneaway Road
DeSimone skillfully maps the everyday romance and unexpected roadblocks between new lovers. This is A BRAVE AND ENGAGING NOVEL, deftly blending yearning, confusion, compassion, and heartbreak.
—Jameson Currier, Author of Where the Rainbow Ends
—Jameson Currier, Author of Where the Rainbow Ends
Chemistry is about attraction and repulsion—finding new love and nursing broken hearts. This wonderful, touching gay novel, set in the age of Prozac and AIDS, offers readers real characters they will care about and think about long after the story ends.
—Gary M. Kramer, Author of Independent Queer Cinema: Reviews and Interviews
A THOROUGHLY ENJOYABLE READ
This is a love story. . . . and so much more. This sensual, erotic novel explores with unusual honesty the nature of romantic chemistry. What is it about a certain someone that attracts—his special qualities?
Our vulnerabilities? Both? To what extent should we follow our hearts? Should we ever question whether a man who seems too good to be true . . . actually is? DeSimone handles these issues with grace, insight, and wit, while exposing his characters’ deepest intimacies.
—Daniel M. Jaffe, Author of The Limits of Pleasure
BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN DEBUT NOVEL addresses the tough issues surrounding mental illness.—Enfuse
A DARINGLY INTIMATE, RISKY, VERY SEXUAL TALE that not only treads the dark waters and the terrible ramifications of coping with clinical depression, but also speaks volumes about the untamed passion that can lie at the hearts of two men.—Curled Up with a Good Book
Lewis DeSimone