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Nebraska
After losing a leg, Craig McMullen and his Uncle Wayne, who has just returned from the Navy with big plans for the future, tragically discovers that life has a way of changing a man's plans
153 pages, Hardcover
First published November 25, 1987
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376 people want to read
About the author
George Whitmore
6 books6 followersAn author and playwright who wrote about the effect of AIDS on society and on his friends, then finally about his own expected death from complications of the disease. Member of the Violet Quill literary group that met from 1980-81.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
February 8, 2016
George Whitmore died of complications from AIDS two years after the publication of “Nebraska.” He was in his early forties. Another member of a lost generation of artists and writers taken by the plague. It’s a shame he published so little fiction, because “Nebraska” is a work of dark beauty. I read it thinking: this is a classic. Why had I never heard of it before? I bought a first edition hardcover for 99 cents after the writer, Dale Peck, posted about it on twitter. I now count it among a very small group of novels that feel special and strange, like found objects. It will remain on my bookshelf forever. It is not easy and not optimistic, but there is hope within. Of course, the hope comes with a dash of pain. A brutal, honest book about the long-term ramifications of shame.
September 22, 2015
This book is beyond good. It is perfect. It may be the Great American Novel.
I looked George Whitmore up on the Internet. He was beautiful. He died a long time ago at age 43. Not fair, not fair, not fair. He made a deal with AIDS and AIDS didn't keep its half of the deal. But I will not be angry because, in NEBRASKA, Craig and his Uncle Wayne are not angry and they had every right to be.
I looked George Whitmore up on the Internet. He was beautiful. He died a long time ago at age 43. Not fair, not fair, not fair. He made a deal with AIDS and AIDS didn't keep its half of the deal. But I will not be angry because, in NEBRASKA, Craig and his Uncle Wayne are not angry and they had every right to be.
November 21, 2018
I really liked this short, rather gothic piece of gay lit, originally published in 1987. I would actually compare it to certain books by Scott Heim and Dennis Cooper. George Whitmore perfectly captures the upper Midwest rural milieu and takes his protagonist through all sorts of dark twists and turns before granting him a strange sort of epiphany. This book deserves to be rediscovered by a new generation, it's really quite good. 4 out of 5.
October 13, 2020
Imaginative, raw and beautifully told.
January 25, 2008
So Nebraska was written by one the less prolific members of the Violet Quill Club. The VCQ was a writer's group basically of gay New York men that first started meeting in the 1970's. Its most famous members are Felice Picano and Edmund White. VCQ members are credited, to some extent, with kicking off the gay literary movement--the production of fiction by and for gay men (and lesbians by extension I guess, but knowing most fags, they weren't thinking about much more than themselves).
A lot of VCQ books--especially by Picano and Andrew Holleran are a lot of New York clubs and Fire Island stuff--very interesting and fun, but slightly dated.
Whitemore's Nebraksa however is much more akin to the work of Dennis Cooper or Scott Heim.
Nebraska is a about a boy involved in a car accident whose recovery coincides with hus uncle's discharge from the Navy. Without spoiling the plot too much, what starts out as a seemingly conventional coming out/coming of age/gays in the military novel takes some interesting and sometimes dark turns that make this short-read well worth reading.
A lot of VCQ books--especially by Picano and Andrew Holleran are a lot of New York clubs and Fire Island stuff--very interesting and fun, but slightly dated.
Whitemore's Nebraksa however is much more akin to the work of Dennis Cooper or Scott Heim.
Nebraska is a about a boy involved in a car accident whose recovery coincides with hus uncle's discharge from the Navy. Without spoiling the plot too much, what starts out as a seemingly conventional coming out/coming of age/gays in the military novel takes some interesting and sometimes dark turns that make this short-read well worth reading.
July 21, 2013
Well worth a read. A tragi-comedy I believe it's called although the tragedy seems to be confined to Craig the boy from whose perspective we follow the events. He has little to laugh about. We see everything through his eyes so there are gaps in the narrative as the boy doesn't see the full story so he fills in the gaps and makes assumptions about his Uncle Wayne. So do we but things are not what they seem.
There is some very good characterisation and you really feel that you know these people; the dullness of their lives and the difficulties they have just getting from day to day. In saying that it has its humorous moments as do even the poorest people. Your heart will go out to Craig but following the story through to the end and how the boy becomes the father to the man. A good read.
There is some very good characterisation and you really feel that you know these people; the dullness of their lives and the difficulties they have just getting from day to day. In saying that it has its humorous moments as do even the poorest people. Your heart will go out to Craig but following the story through to the end and how the boy becomes the father to the man. A good read.
June 16, 2011
The beginning of "Nebraska" sets the dark tone for the whole book; a 12 year old boy runs out into the street in his small town, is hit by a car and loses his leg. The boy will continue to face hard times, the loss of his father to alcoholism and the loss of his gay uncle to medical "therapy." "Nebraska," one of two novels that George Whitmore ever wrote, is strongest in its depiction of rural life. The unnamed boy's narrative rings true: "One thing was for sure, no one had ever turned to Mama, as Mr. Burrows did in his car, and said about Grandpa 'He is of the old school.' To Mama, that summed Grandpa up. Someone had at last found words that made him bigger and smaller at the same time." The ending, set in 1969 California, is unsettling and may shock some readers. Worth reading for those interested in a rare Eighties fictional look at gay life in rural America.
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January 3, 2025It’s named after my favorite state!
October 15, 2025
zoom zoom. best book i've read this year!
October 14, 2025
Haunting, effortlessly written, at some points laugh-out-loud hilarious. I’m so sad George Whitmore’s life and career was cut so short, but grateful he left behind the work that he did.
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October 31, 2025Phewwwww. Well that’s bleak. But good! Yet bleak…
November 11, 2025
You just have to love a forgotten novel that might actually be *the* Great American Novel in the flesh. All the ingredients are there (road trips, family issues, pain, suffering, stoicism in that suffering, small towns, leaving said small towns, etc.).
April 15, 2022
WHAT IS A “REAL BOY”?
Twelve-year-old Craig McMullen is the narrator of George Whitmore’s Nebraska. He begins his story in 1956, right after he is run over by a truck and loses one of his legs. He never says, as far as I can remember, which leg he is missing. On the second page of the novel, Craig says from his gut, “At night I turned that lost leg over and over and over like a new limb held in my hands and after a while there wasn’t anything they could do to me that hurt anymore.” Early in his life, Craig McMullen develops an inner strength that will not be defeated.
When Craig’s Uncle Wayne comes home to Lincoln from the navy, he is like a movie star to Craig, a hero, and a father figure. Craig’s father has deserted the family. No mortal man could live up to what Craig expects of Uncle Wayne, and, of course, Uncle Wayne doesn’t. When Craig sees Uncle Wayne ”crawl up the stairs like Dad used to do on his hands and knees nights . . . I decided I must hate him.” Craig will have to deal with the consequences of the lies he tells. What horrible things did they do to Wayne after they took him away? We can only guess.
The middle section of the novel is harrowing. Craig’s dad suddenly reappears and kidnaps Craig. Now born-again, Craig’s dad tries, in his own misguided way, which is actually typical of many American fathers who have sons who are “different,” to love Craig, but, instead, physically abuses him. I feared for Craig’s life. Craig flat out says to his father, “I will never be a real boy like you want.” The “real boy” that most American fathers want is a myth.
In the last section of the novel, when Craig reunites with Uncle Wayne in California in 1969, he finds him “whizzen” and a shell of the man he once was. In a beautiful and uplifting scene, Craig attempts to redeem himself with Wayne. Craig’s love for his Uncle Wayne, filtered through his loneliness, is magnificent. Ironically, and triumphantly, Craig becomes more of a father to Wayne than Wayne or Craig’s dad could have ever been to Craig. Nebraska packs an emotional punch that leaves me reeling.
Whitmore masterfully maintains the bare bones style and tone of the novel from the first page to the last. He reigns in his prose and says no more and no less than he wants to in order to keep the reader’s interest. For example, this line: “But the next day Wesley’s dad came forward.” And this line: “Then I lift Wayne’s hand up from off my belly and gently place it down there.” Whitmore just leaves the reader with these lines. He doesn’t tell you anymore. He doesn’t need to. The power of Nebraska lies in its spareness. Whitmore’s writing style reminds me of Hemingway’s. For instance, these short, direct sentences: “Dad was not dead. He was in Denver. He had a new name. He didn’t even try to divorce Mama.”
On the front cover of my paperback edition of Nebraska , the following quote from a review appears: “Nebraska is Huckleberry Finn gone awry.” Yes! I thought, when I read this. This observation is pertinent, but I’m not quite sure how to unpack it. I remember that in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn the drunkard Pap kidnaps Huck, his son. And like Huck proposes to do, Craig eventually lights out for the territory, a common escape route for many gay men. I’m not implying here that Huck is gay, but who knows? Ernest Hemingway writes in Green Hills of Africa, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” What would Hemingway have thought of Nebraska?
Another gay novel that bounces off of Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is Michael Grumley’s Life Drawing. Whitmore and Grumley were members of the famous Violet Quill group of gay writers in the early 1980s. George Whitmore was lost to AIDS on April 19, 1989 at the age of 43. Michael Grumley was lost to AIDS on April 28, 1988 at the age of 45. Whitmore’s Nebraska is unfortunately out of print. ReQueered Tales recently reissued Life Drawing in an e-book edition.
Twelve-year-old Craig McMullen is the narrator of George Whitmore’s Nebraska. He begins his story in 1956, right after he is run over by a truck and loses one of his legs. He never says, as far as I can remember, which leg he is missing. On the second page of the novel, Craig says from his gut, “At night I turned that lost leg over and over and over like a new limb held in my hands and after a while there wasn’t anything they could do to me that hurt anymore.” Early in his life, Craig McMullen develops an inner strength that will not be defeated.
When Craig’s Uncle Wayne comes home to Lincoln from the navy, he is like a movie star to Craig, a hero, and a father figure. Craig’s father has deserted the family. No mortal man could live up to what Craig expects of Uncle Wayne, and, of course, Uncle Wayne doesn’t. When Craig sees Uncle Wayne ”crawl up the stairs like Dad used to do on his hands and knees nights . . . I decided I must hate him.” Craig will have to deal with the consequences of the lies he tells. What horrible things did they do to Wayne after they took him away? We can only guess.
The middle section of the novel is harrowing. Craig’s dad suddenly reappears and kidnaps Craig. Now born-again, Craig’s dad tries, in his own misguided way, which is actually typical of many American fathers who have sons who are “different,” to love Craig, but, instead, physically abuses him. I feared for Craig’s life. Craig flat out says to his father, “I will never be a real boy like you want.” The “real boy” that most American fathers want is a myth.
In the last section of the novel, when Craig reunites with Uncle Wayne in California in 1969, he finds him “whizzen” and a shell of the man he once was. In a beautiful and uplifting scene, Craig attempts to redeem himself with Wayne. Craig’s love for his Uncle Wayne, filtered through his loneliness, is magnificent. Ironically, and triumphantly, Craig becomes more of a father to Wayne than Wayne or Craig’s dad could have ever been to Craig. Nebraska packs an emotional punch that leaves me reeling.
Whitmore masterfully maintains the bare bones style and tone of the novel from the first page to the last. He reigns in his prose and says no more and no less than he wants to in order to keep the reader’s interest. For example, this line: “But the next day Wesley’s dad came forward.” And this line: “Then I lift Wayne’s hand up from off my belly and gently place it down there.” Whitmore just leaves the reader with these lines. He doesn’t tell you anymore. He doesn’t need to. The power of Nebraska lies in its spareness. Whitmore’s writing style reminds me of Hemingway’s. For instance, these short, direct sentences: “Dad was not dead. He was in Denver. He had a new name. He didn’t even try to divorce Mama.”
On the front cover of my paperback edition of Nebraska , the following quote from a review appears: “Nebraska is Huckleberry Finn gone awry.” Yes! I thought, when I read this. This observation is pertinent, but I’m not quite sure how to unpack it. I remember that in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn the drunkard Pap kidnaps Huck, his son. And like Huck proposes to do, Craig eventually lights out for the territory, a common escape route for many gay men. I’m not implying here that Huck is gay, but who knows? Ernest Hemingway writes in Green Hills of Africa, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” What would Hemingway have thought of Nebraska?
Another gay novel that bounces off of Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is Michael Grumley’s Life Drawing. Whitmore and Grumley were members of the famous Violet Quill group of gay writers in the early 1980s. George Whitmore was lost to AIDS on April 19, 1989 at the age of 43. Michael Grumley was lost to AIDS on April 28, 1988 at the age of 45. Whitmore’s Nebraska is unfortunately out of print. ReQueered Tales recently reissued Life Drawing in an e-book edition.
September 1, 2024
When I was in the hospital, I was like the lady in the magician's box, who must smile and smile as the blades get slipped into her.
At these times which seemed to wax not wane, Vernon knew the devil must take great pains to furnish hell with all sorts of things of rare beauty, beautiful paintings and statuary, gold, silver and jewels, carpets like mosses, ceilings like sunsets, perfect fragrant rose trees, peacocks and perfumed fountains.
I cried, when I lay on the bed in Uncle Wayne's room at the top of the stairs because he was sailing around the world, listening to their voices, so soft, it was their own house but they sounded for all the world like people coming in late to the movies saying Excuse me please Thanks Oh so sorry, listening to the firecrackers that sounded like popcorn popping far away in the city park where you sat on waxed paper to go dangerous fast down the slide with two bumps, listening to the thump of passing cars' tires on the rails over the crossing (they recoil and rear up out of control a minute in the air), listening to the Kamikaze moths dive-bombing the window screens dying to get in to die and the racket of the crickets and the whirr down in the bayou where I knew a coffee can yet floated in the stinking water since I could not sink it that afternoon by throwing stones at it.
At these times which seemed to wax not wane, Vernon knew the devil must take great pains to furnish hell with all sorts of things of rare beauty, beautiful paintings and statuary, gold, silver and jewels, carpets like mosses, ceilings like sunsets, perfect fragrant rose trees, peacocks and perfumed fountains.
I cried, when I lay on the bed in Uncle Wayne's room at the top of the stairs because he was sailing around the world, listening to their voices, so soft, it was their own house but they sounded for all the world like people coming in late to the movies saying Excuse me please Thanks Oh so sorry, listening to the firecrackers that sounded like popcorn popping far away in the city park where you sat on waxed paper to go dangerous fast down the slide with two bumps, listening to the thump of passing cars' tires on the rails over the crossing (they recoil and rear up out of control a minute in the air), listening to the Kamikaze moths dive-bombing the window screens dying to get in to die and the racket of the crickets and the whirr down in the bayou where I knew a coffee can yet floated in the stinking water since I could not sink it that afternoon by throwing stones at it.
April 19, 2023
This is a title from one of the members of the Violet Quill Club, most of whom are now gone, taken by AIDS and other diseases. Some were prolific, some such as Whitmore were not. I don't know why I was previously unfamiliar with this book since I have tried to learn and read most of what the group had to offer, but this one is special, at once lyrical and meditative, about the small and large events that can change our lives forever. Craig as a young boy, has been in an accident and had his leg amputated, but slowly, slowly learns to adapt to his loss. His Uncle Wayne back from war never returns mentally to the ways of his old hometown in Nebraska, and commits "crimes" that are considered morally and ethically wrong, for which he is never forgiven by his family and is made to pay in one of the worst ways imaginable. As Craig grows up, he loses touch with his uncle, but finds him a very changed man in later life, comes to blame himself for what happened to Wayne, and realizes there are somethings no matter how much you push to the back of your mind, you might never really get over. I wish I had encountered this book much earlier as it is now one of my favorites and sure to be reread.
March 27, 2024
What a wretched book! Written in a clunky and juvenile style (perhaps to imitate its 12-year-old protagonist), the descriptors of family members take far more page space than the trauma at this book's core. This should also not be classified as a gay novel, as the only thing resembling gay is incestuous molestation of a minor, the complete wrong type of representation. I know the author was dying of AIDS when he wrote this, but his legacy in this book is ludicrously imbalanced and devoid of real characterization.
December 17, 2025
discovered this book by chat chat chatting away with the man manning the song cave booth at press play and everyone kept coming up the table raving about it. it is so sorrowful yet so good, violent yet very matter-of-fact in a way of queerness in rural America in the 50s/60s. written in the very masculine style of American Modernism, which i think adds even more depth to the book. very emotional reading experience
March 12, 2025
这本书的主题非常多，围绕着Craig的童年和十年后的他展开了一副上世纪五六十年代美国中部农村的性少数人群形象还有家庭形象：酗酒的父亲要强的母亲倔强的姐姐胆怯的叔叔还有迷茫又消沉的自己。这比作家们所呈现的纽约市和LA市的性少数人群更为胆小又更纯真，只有一次提及公共厕所，比五六十年代那堆全篇都是森林公园厕所的小说来得更为简单。若没猜错的话叔叔在1967年那部分看的“酋长”的书就是芬兰汤姆画的皮裤机车男们，警察突袭公共厕所和报刊刊登被捕人的姓名也是时代特色。虽然这小说填补了“美国中部乡村同性恋人群的家庭形象”这一文学空格，但是小说最后呈现的逻辑思维很混乱，说是意识流但也没一根隐晦的线穿着所有的碎片，说是倒叙相当大一部分是在描述无关事物，这本书在GoodReads上只有70多个评分，其实也不无道理
November 25, 2025
"Really they were each other's life sentence. They were now together forever, more wed than man and wife, more tied than mother and child."
tragic and dark glimpse into being gay in nebraska.. heavy content
tragic and dark glimpse into being gay in nebraska.. heavy content
October 23, 2025
perfect book
August 21, 2024
I am revising this review, my new remarks are in brackets.
An absolutely wonderful and beautifully written book and it is a scandal that it is not in print and/or available either in libraries (I am referring to the UK) or in a Kindle edition (the novel is available in Kindle and E-book neither formats that I use) and I still think it outrageous that there is not and was not (according to what I could discover and what was listed on Goodreads - not entirely trustworthy) a printed edition subsequent to the original publication in 1989. It is a short book and I can not recommend it highly enough. If you want to read a superbly written, crisp and moving and still relevant story then read this book.
(I feel I should say more but honestly other reviewers have gone into greater detail so I don't see the point. It is a beautiful little novel and what it speaks about was worth saying forty years ago and is still worth saying now. There are no real bad guys in the novel - there are plenty of quick moralistic judgements and the concomitant condemnations but they are universal. This story could happen today, indeed might be likely to happen today because prejudice is just as rampant but is disguised in bogus ways. This is a novel about fear and prejudice and unfortunately they never go away, they go underground and change the way they manifest themselves, but they don't go away. I really hope more people read it).
An absolutely wonderful and beautifully written book and it is a scandal that it is not in print and/or available either in libraries (I am referring to the UK) or in a Kindle edition (the novel is available in Kindle and E-book neither formats that I use) and I still think it outrageous that there is not and was not (according to what I could discover and what was listed on Goodreads - not entirely trustworthy) a printed edition subsequent to the original publication in 1989. It is a short book and I can not recommend it highly enough. If you want to read a superbly written, crisp and moving and still relevant story then read this book.
(I feel I should say more but honestly other reviewers have gone into greater detail so I don't see the point. It is a beautiful little novel and what it speaks about was worth saying forty years ago and is still worth saying now. There are no real bad guys in the novel - there are plenty of quick moralistic judgements and the concomitant condemnations but they are universal. This story could happen today, indeed might be likely to happen today because prejudice is just as rampant but is disguised in bogus ways. This is a novel about fear and prejudice and unfortunately they never go away, they go underground and change the way they manifest themselves, but they don't go away. I really hope more people read it).
January 31, 2014
confusing and morbid.
January 29, 2014
Not sure what I think of this. Sad, disturbing, you decide
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews