First Born Sons
Author: Vincent Traughber Meis
Genre: Literary, Contemporary, Gay, Trans, Racial Identity
A group of coastal Californians battle wildfires, racism, and their own demons in five distinct narratives set in late 2019 and 2020.
First Born Sons is populated by a cast of LGBTQ+ individuals and their allies who struggle to find love, comfort, and fulfillment. As the novel progresses, characters interact across the separate narratives and are brought together for a birthday and a disastrous Black Lives Matter demonstration. A man returning to the horrors that made him leave Mississippi, a blind gay man flirting with love, an FTM transgender starting hormone therapy, a woman struggling to protect her sons from her ex-husband’s surge to right-wing politics, and a teenager with two gay dads searching for his Black surrogate mom paint a disturbing tableau of modern-day America.