What do you say to a young man who is dying? And if that young man is dying of AIDS and was your lover whom you’ve left one year past, what do you then do? In Ted Wojtasik’s complex novel of gay love, the problem isn’t one of coming out of the closet—it’s one of maturing into responsible love. And Wojtasik superbly mixes the unlikely combinations of Central European history, Admiral Peary’s North Pole Expedition, the artistry of collage, a cross-dressing singer, an upcoming gay playwright thwarted by the national onset of AIDS, and homo-erotic love into just such a life object lesson for his young protagonist, Zee.

To reach such responsibility and understanding, Zee must shuffle memories of his grandfather, a resistance fighter in World War II; his research at the National archives into Admiral Peary’s letters; his collage art; his obsessive sexual encounters, and mostly his leaving Matthew for . . . "Oh, Matthew, everything. Everything seemed such a burden. The relationship, the city, the Archives, my father’s carping about job security. Just everything. I couldn’t separate one thing from another. It all just formed a huge rectangle of burden when all I wanted to do was to have the time to make collages." Of course, Wojtasik’s controlling metaphor is just that: a collage. By the time you finish this sometimes harsh, always heartwarming novel, you will, along with Zee, discover the importance of piecing together.