Scissors, Paper, Rock — Fenton Johnson

Two generations of a Kentucky family struggle with loss and reunion in a novel by a Lambda Award winner: “Brilliant . . . emotional jolts lurk on every page.” -- Entertainment Weekly
 
Despite the emotional distance that has long existed between them, Raphael Hardin has left San Francisco to care for his dying father in his rural Kentucky hometown. Raphael had finally made a life for himself in California, away from the tiny Appalachian town of Strang Knob -- but now that life is threatened by an AIDS diagnosis.
 
As father and son reunite, the story moves to Raphael's siblings, among them an alcoholic brother haunted by guilt and a sister beset by loneliness -- as well as Miss Perkins, an unmarried schoolteacher who has known the Hardins for decades -- painting a portrait of a family and a community, of blood struggles, broken hearts, and binding loves.
 
“Powerfully moving.” -- New York Times Book Review
 
“A seductive rumination on the ways that memory can torment or soothe, and sometimes do both at the same time.” -- San Francisco Chronicle
 
“A wise and compassionate novel.” -- Publishers Weekly