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Freaks and Revelations: A Novel

Alternating chapters beginning in 1973 chronicle the lives and journeys of two individuals whose radically divergent paths eventually meet. At ten, Doug is a victim of anger in his family. As a teenager he finds relief in expressing his own rage through violence. Jason is thirteen when he comes out to his family. His hyper-religious mother throws him out of the house, and he’s soon living on the streets, eventually hustling to survive. In 1980, Doug’s racist, neo-Nazi gang attacks a group of gay street kids in Los Angeles, and Jason becomes the focal point of their violence. Davida Wills Hurwin chronicles each boy’s journey—paths of pain and hurt that leave one boy looking for safe harbor and love, and the other striking out in fury—to that terrible meeting in this chilling novel that also explores redemption by documenting the aftermath over the next twenty-five years. Her book is based on the real lives of Timothy Zaal and Matthew Boger, who met doing work at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles as adults and realized they had crossed paths years before when Zaal viciously beat Boger on the streets. Hurwin doesn’t shy away from explicitly describing the reality of either boy’s life in this compelling novel with a conclusion that would be hard to believe were it not based on fact. © Cooperative Children's Book Center

CCBC Age Recommendation: Age 14 and older
Age Range: Grades 9-12 (Age 14 and older)
Format: Novel
Subjects: Child Abuse Forgiveness Gays Homelessness LGBTQ+ Persons Racism Violence
Diversity subject: LGBTQ Character/Topic

Publisher: Little, Brown
Publish Year: 2009
Pages: 234
ISBN: 9780316049962

CCBC Location: Fiction, Hurwin

Freaks and Revelations: A Novel