The Early Journals of Will Barnett (ePub)

The Early Journals of Will Barnett

a three-volume book in one

Fourteen year old Will Barnett lays eyes on his Uncle Sean for the first time since he was a toddler and he is struck by his uncle's beauty and begins that day to obsess over him. He gets his father to buy him a Big Chief Tablet (this takes place in the 1960s), which is a pulp paper tablet that was popular for many years for children to write in. Will is a farm kid from the Boot Heel of New Mexico, and is painfully ignorant and naive, and the feelings that rush through him about his Uncle Sean, he has to try to understand what he is feeling. When Sean is not in his room at Will's parents' house Will goes through his uncle's belongings, telling himself he knows he shouldn't but he's got to find out about him. He discovers a photograph of his shirtless uncle and another fellow soldier, taken during a tour in Viet Nam. From there Will assumes that his uncle and the soldier were "boyfriends."

In the tablet, Will's first words are "Uncle Sean sure is pretty, but there's something wrong with him anyway." And it is with these words that Will begins a long journey toward adulthood, self-awareness, finding his own boyfriend, and learning to separate his youthful feeling for his uncle from the reality of what that means.

Readers will literally see Will Barnett grow up before their eyes as he writes in his journal. The Early Journals cover three volumes, brought together in this one Book. They are Uncle Sean, Lance, and All Over Him.