Chris McCormick

“Desert Boys links thirteen stories centering around three boys. Two eventually leave and one stays. Much of the action is set in Antelope Valley, a small California town town bordered by the Mojave desert. The timeline jumps around. Loose ends are allowed to rest, only to surface in another story - not unlike little nuggets dropped accidentally, maybe at a cousin's wedding reception. There's a secret that lurks fallow strangled over time by intervening realities.

There's something about growing up friendships. I still miss a childhood friend from when I was three years old into my mid-teens when his family moved away. We change, we move, and the experience seems gone. There's too much going on for us to feel the emptiness. But the roots bind without us knowing. And when it goes away, it never really does, an ineffable sorrow, lurking on some shelf in the unreachable, read-only past.… (mere)