While My Wife’s Away

To all appearances, Joe Heath is a typical straight married man, living with his wife and two teenage children, commuting to work, playing sports and going to the gym, enjoying a beer and a barbecue. But there are things about Joe that his friends don’t know. For one thing, his relationship with his wife has deteriorated to the point that they’re sleeping in separate bedrooms, only staying together until the kids have left home. And there’s something else: for the last few years, Joe has wanted to have sex with another man. While My Wife’s Awayrecounts Joe’s recognition of his sexual nature in a series of encounters–some short, some repeated, some comic, some sad, all of them extremely hot in the way that only James Lear can make them. Each chapter is a self-contained episode from Joe’s life, but throughout the book we see him coming to terms with what he really is, and struggling with his feelings of guilt and betrayal as it becomes clear that his marriage is over. Much of the dramatic tension in the book arises from the difficulties of negotiating his family life with his new personal life, the awkwardness and potential disaster inherent in each situation.