"Death in Venice is Thomas Mann's novella concerning Gustav von Aschenbach, a famous middle-aged author who in order to alleviate a terrible case of writer's black decides to go on holiday. Gustav first travels to the coast of Austria-Hungary but soon is overcome with the feeling that he is meant to travel to Venice. On Lido Island he takes up residence in a suite at the Grand Hotel des Bains. During dinner one evening at the hotel he sees a family...

"Three years ago, Bear McKenna's mother took off for parts unknown with her new boyfriend, leaving Bear to raise his six-year-old brother Tyson, aka the Kid. Somehow they've muddled through, but since he's totally devoted to the Kid, Bear isn't actually doing much living--with a few exceptions, he 's retreated from the world, and he's mostly okay with that. Until Otter comes home. Otter is Bear's best friend's older brother, and as they've done...

A new translation of the author's short fiction. The title story is on a man's infatuation with a beautiful boy while on holiday in Venice, in The Blood of the Walsungs a woman cheats on her fiance by having an affair with her twin brother, and in The Will for Happiness a sick man waits five years to marry a woman, dying the day after the wedding.

Homosexual Jim searches for his childhoodfriend Bob with whom he had an amorous experience with in high school.