The Last Comback — John M. Daniel

Kit Sawyer agrees to try for one more comeback. At 67, Kit is tired of the road, but Archie promises him this time there will be no live performances. They won't even have to leave their home on California's Central Coast. This time all Kit has to do is record the tracks to some new material and learn the uncomfortable art of social networking, starting with Facebook. Reluctant at first, Kit gets hooked on Facebook, where he explores his past by searching for old friends, including Jimmy Skinner, a lad he loved when they were young. Next Kit types in the name of Doris Tobin, a girl he had an affair with in the summer of 1962, while he and Jimmy worked as hired hands and musicians at a dude ranch in Colorado. He finds out that Doris gave birth to a boy nine months after they said goodbye. Forced to face his past, Kit recalls in vivid detail that glorious, bewildering summer in the Rockies, where he first found himself on the confusing and alluring path of bisexuality. The Final Comeback is a short novel that spans 50 years and the American continent from the California dunes to the snow-capped Rockies to the ivy-draped walls of New England. It is about songs and show business, youth and maturity, friendship and love.