Two, Two, Lily-White Boys

Two, Two, Lily-White Boys follows the fortunes of two 14-year-old Scouts from Ermine Falls—Larry Carstairs, the narrator, and Andy Dellums, Larry’s schoolmate and friend—over the course of six days at Camp Greavy, a Boy Scout camp not far from Traverse City, Michigan. The story’s catalyst and Andy’s tormentor is Russell “Curly” Norrys, a worldly, charismatic 17-year-old, a homophobe who suspects that Andy is a homosexual. Mercurial, protean, possibly sociopathic, Curly engineers conflicts that accelerate as the days wear on, eventually culminating in tragedy. Passive-aggressive Larry, moved to action at last, must choose between self-preservation and justice.

When he’s not writing about misplaced Michiganders in Rhode Island, Geoffrey Clark’s fiction mostly takes place in rural northern lower Michigan. Clark’s narratives tend to contain rites of passage—dark comedies that often end with disturbing results and moral ambiguities. Clark’s protagonists mount a struggle against brutality and ignorance as they seek to discover heir own moral paths.

Clark’s eight full-length works include Schooling the Spirit, Jackdog Summer, Wedding in October, and Necessary Deaths. He has published short fiction in Ploughshares, Mississippi Review, Pittsburgh Quarterly, Witness, and The Green Hills Literary Lantern, where he is presently a member of the editorial board.

Geoffrey Clark retired as Professor of Creative Writing at Roger Williams University in 1999. He lives in Warren, Rhode Island.