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Featured Story: Cross Currents By Adam Phillips

Cia

Entry posted by Cia in Featured Stories

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It's Monday, but never fear, we have something to keep you entertained through the week... cause it could take that long to read this story! Have you read Adam Phillip's epic-length novel, Cross Currents? First go take a peek at the Signature Background we featured last week and download your copy, then enjoy the reviews some of Adam's fans shared about his story!

 


 

by



Signature Author


Reviewer: Tyler
Status: Complete
Length: 288,623

 


In April of 2001, before the world changed, before Facebook, before Glee and sense8, before Obergefell vs Hodge, a man writing under the nom de plume of John Walsh began publishing the serial auto-biographical novel Fraternity Memoirs. The widespread use of the Internet was fairly new, and the advancement of online social communities to the point where non techies could use them to form tight-knit groups around common interests fueled an explosion of outpourings of support; men (and women, but mostly men) from many different walks of life found each other discussing Walsh’s novel and reaching out to Walsh to say “your story is my story”, “your pain is my pain”, “that there is someone like you in the world, who knows what it is to be like me, gives me hope.” And also, of course, “that was so hot.”

 

Adam Phillips, at the time a senior in college, was one of those men. And as a reflection of the shared pain that bound this nascent community together, he decided to write the novel Crosscurrents, hoping he could tell a story that would provide similar encouragement, solidarity and arousal. At its core, Crosscurrents is a coming of age and love story of the protagonist Andy and his childhood best friend Matt. But it touches on many themes: fluidity in personal sexuality, internalized homophobia, sex as a tool to use people, sex as a tool to love people, the natural tendency to believe you know what is in someone else’s head, life as a popular guy, life as a traumatized guy, how to date a cheerleader. The unbelievably common but incredibly bizarre belief that bisexual people don’t exist. Many more.

 

The writing itself is pretty good. As in almost any well-thought-out long form narrative there are some places where it feels as though Phillips were trying too hard. But far more often than not, you’ll come across gems such as “It was the solstice of the Endless Summer in our lives, a time that, while I now understand it as cruelly brief and ephemeral, seemed during those days as if it stretched out ahead of us forever” or the simpler but equally compelling, “My heart was never far from broken.” By and large, the story doesn’t merely draw you in, it sings to you.

 

I have had my own personal tragedies, and I, like the character Andy, and like everyone who grew up before this sometimes more welcoming modern era, have had to deal with the internal trauma delivered by the pernicious homophobic conception that somehow it is bad, it is wrong, to be who you are. Every time I read a chapter of Crosscurrents I learn a little more from Andy about myself and how to get away from my own self-loathing and its associated anxiety, and that’s the best recommendation for a novel I could offer.

 

As a warning to readers, know that this story will make you laugh and cry; you will fall in love with the characters, and at the same time you may occasionally dislike them; it will get you hard (or wet if that’s how your equipment works). But if you are offended by straight sex, this story isn’t for you. The first half of the novel is not really overtly sexual, but the parts of that half that are [very] erotic are primarily m/f. The m/m stuff mostly doesn’t get going until chapter 20.

 

A note regarding the author: If you loved his story, if you felt a strong connection to the characters—especially if you felt a strong connection—if you need someone to talk to, drop him an email like I did; I’m sure he’d love to hear from you. After all, he told this story for you.

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  • Site Administrator
Valkyrie
  • Site Administrator

Great review :)  This is one of the best stories on this site and well worth riding out the roller coaster that Adam puts us through. 

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Tara00
Great review :)  This is one of the best stories on this site and well worth riding out the roller coaster that Adam puts us through.

 

I second this. Have read it through and through... Would do it again. :)

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Lisa

Ditto Val and Tara - Crosscurrents is one of the best stories I have ever read, online or from a book. It will make you laugh, cry, cry, and cry. Oh, did I mention it would make you cry? lol  (Maybe I just got too emotionally invested in Andy and Matt's story.)

 

Excellent review, Tyler! :) Now I want to read it all over again!!

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  • Site Administrator
Valkyrie
  • Site Administrator

It's not just you, Lisa.  I sobbed my eyes out reading that story.  lol  Definitely have a box of tissues handy when you start to read it.  A full box of tissues.  lol

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Tara00

I read the story over the span of some years as and when Adam posted, desperately waiting for the next fix! It was well worth the wait every time. And yes, the box of tissues were always handy. lol

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Headstall

Powerful, beyond belief. Someday, I will read it again, when I'm ready to be put through the wringer once more. For the most part, it is sadness personified, but that is not a complaint. An excellent review, Tyler. Cheers... Gary

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TetRefine

This is by far and away my favorite novel-length story on GA. There are so many stories centered around jocks in gay literature, but in Cross Currents, the characters feel so authentic. There were times over my reading of Cross Currents where I wanted to punch Andy, hug Andy, cry for Andy, and fuck Andy. Never before in any story I've read (gay or mainstream) have I ever felt this way about a character. The fact that Andy comes off as so real (and is essentially actually real) makes you really able to feel with him throughout so much of the story. 

 

It is so worth the time to read, and you'll be an emotional wreck by the time its over (and I mean that as nothing but a pure compliment). 

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Adam Phillips
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Again, thanks, guys, for the warm words about CC. Tyler has been an e-buddy of mine for a long, long time and was a huge supporter of CC in the early years. As time went on and I just wasn't finishing it, he fell away from the story--understandably--and he actually had to finish reading it to write the review!

 

I didn't see the review before you did, but he did warn me ahead of time that he put a mild note of critique in it. I called him a bitch--well, because he is one--and told him "you know I'm good with whatever you bring."

 

And actually--let's be real, here--he's on the money with that one critique. There are places where the writing takes Crosscurrents across the line that separates effective style from melodrama. There are places that are mannered and self-aware in ways that I'm not happy about. I wince when I read those passages. In my defense, much of CC was written when I'd just started writing narrative. I know now how to do those places better yet keep them just as powerful. Someday I may go back and fix them, but I have other fish to fry and other stories to tell first.

 

But even having said all that, for the most part, I'm proud of the writing in CC and happy with it. I tried to put a little style to it, and for the most part I think I hit that "just right" spot between "not enough" and "too much."

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methodwriter85

Dude, for the love of God, PLEASE stop going back and tweaking Cross-Currents. It's a done story. It's finished. Let it stay there. It's not a perfect story but it's a damn good one that I think should finally get to rest. I get that you're a perfectionist but if you keep tweaking the story it'll never really be finished. Let it stand finished. It doesn't need to be continually tweaked with.

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Drew Espinosa

Adam,

 

While I have yet to read your story ( I am quite intimidated by the "need for Kleenex boxes" and the "rollercoaster ride" :lol: ) nevertheless, I am sure it is a wonderful story as many here have pointed out.

 

Of course, I understand your self-critique, but I recall a saying regarding their works, that "artists are the toughest critics." I am sure countless artists, authors, and musicians have found 'faults' in their work... despite the fact that said works are treasured by many.

 

Yes, nothing is truly perfect, but it is those imperfections that (for me at least) make things all the more precious. :hug:

 

Best Regards,

Drew

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methodwriter85

Adam,

 

While I have yet to read your story ( I am quite intimidated by the "need for Kleenex boxes" and the "rollercoaster ride" :lol: ) nevertheless, I am sure it is a wonderful story as many here have pointed out.

 

Of course, I understand your self-critique, but I recall a saying regarding their works, that "artists are the toughest critics." I am sure countless artists, authors, and musicians have found 'faults' in their work... despite the fact that said works are treasured by many.

 

Yes, nothing is truly perfect, but it is those imperfections that (for me at least) make things all the more precious. :hug:

 

Best Regards,

Drew

 

I think you did a much better of saying what I was trying to say. Thanks.

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Adam Phillips

Dude, for the love of God, PLEASE stop going back and tweaking Cross-Currents. It's a done story. It's finished. Let it stay there. It's not a perfect story but it's a damn good one that I think should finally get to rest. I get that you're a perfectionist but if you keep tweaking the story it'll never really be finished. Let it stand finished. It doesn't need to be continually tweaked with.

 

Jeremy's a long-time nemesis/e-friend of mine, so take this reply with just a little tongue in cheek, all.--

 

I'm gonna have to bag on you just a little, Jeremy, as punishment for your posting of this.

 

You know how sometimes you'd send me a review of a chapter of Crosscurrents two minutes after I'd posted it? And I'd complain, "If you're gonna speed-read my stuff, I don't want you as a reader."? Seriously, with all the work I did in each chapter and all I tried to put in each one, for you to digest it and render judgment in two minutes? And I'm supposed to take it seriously? :lol:

 

Similarly, I gotta say, regarding that comment of mine to which you just responded, what part of "Someday I may go back and fix them, but I have other fish to fry and other stories to tell FIRST" were you not able to comprehend?

 

The point of that section of the post was to acknowledge the validity of Tyler's criticism. That's all. The point was not to put everyone on notice that I won't be doing any more new writing while I immediately go into "perfect-it" mode on Crosscurrents.

 

And to react to that one sentence as if that were, uh, actually what it said instead of what you made up from whole cloth in that little head of yours is to have misread and completely not-understood the post.

 

Now that you've given it a second look, wouldn't you agree, Jeremy? :hug:

 

Now the real lesson to be learned, the real cautionary tales--and something I might have taken more to heart in a post like yours--are that 1) Stephen King didn't improve the first book in his Dark Tower series (The Gunslinger) when he revised it. Quite the opposite; and 2) Likewise, George Lucas's new and improved take on Star Wars is arguably not an improvement, but a, uh, a de-provement. lol

 

Those are points worth pondering. Not that I'm comparing myself those guys in their greatness. I'm comparing myself to those guys in their second-guessing-themselves-ness.

 

Love you, buddy.  ;-)

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