Stealing Home (bundle set): KC, at Bat; Travelin' Man; Lonesome Town

by Tom Mendicino

As young men on the cusp of life, Charlie Beresford and Kevin “KC” Conroy forged an unlikely friendship. Though the years have lead them down unexpected paths, the bonds of an enduring love will bring them back to where they have always belonged . . .In the summer before college, hauling furniture is the last thing Charlie Beresford wants do with his time. Then, Kevin Conroy—the Mighty KC—joins the moving crew. A star baseball player bound for the big leagues, Charlie is shocked when KC reveals another side of his jock persona—and suddenly, Charlie finds the long summer coming to a bittersweet end. But as Charlie moves on to Dartmouth, KC never makes it to the majors. He finds himself in Oregon, no longer defined by his physical gifts, but building a new life with new friends, and learning to play by the heart . . .At twenty-two, Charlie has a degree in hand and an entry-level job in radio. But sometimes he feels like the only thing he learned in college was that he’s already made the biggest mistake of his life. So when he runs into his old high-school crush, he’s more than ready to make up for lost time, even if the odds are long. Because the one thing Charlie and KC know too well is that the only thing worse than striking out is never taking a chance at all . . .Praise for Tom Mendicino’s Probation“Thoughtful, textured and poignant . . . an exciting impressive debut.” —Time Out NY“A smart, engaging, witty, sad and unusual book about the complicated nature of family and love.” —Bart Yates, author of Leave Myself Behind“A potent debut.” —Publishers Weekly“Achingly honest.” —Vestal McIntryre, author of Lake Overturn

Genres: M M Romance, LGBT, Romance

342 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 31, 2017

About the author

Tom Mendicino is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of North Carolina School of Law. His forthcoming novel, The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter (Kensington, September 2015), is about a pair of motherless boys, the sons of an abusive immigrant from Italy, and the choices each makes to protect the other.

His debut novel Probation (Kensington) was named a 2011 American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. He is also the author of the new adult novellas KC, at Bat, Travelin' Man, and Lonesome Town, a trilogy following the relationship between a promising baseball player and a would-be musician.

Reviews

[LenaRibka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Update 03/07/2018
Especially happy to see this book among finalists of the 30th Lammys!

30th Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalist - Gay Romance


The original review:

I don't think that Tom Mendicino planned KC, at Bat to become a trilogy. I remember that I was absolutely thrilled and overjoyed when I found out that his next book Travelin' Man was a sequel to it. And I can't even explain you my excitement when Lonesome Town was released. It was like a big great surprise when you expected it the less.

Stealing Home is a wonderful edition that presents all three novels as a one full-length novel of three parts. And I can't get tired recommending it to you.

I can only quote KatieMc, "damn, I love this author."

My reviews to:

KC, at Bat
Travelin' Man
Lonesome Town

[Chiara D'Agosto · Rating 5 out of 5]

RE-READ NOVEMBER 2023

Oh dear. I think I cried way more than the first time around. What a harsh, moving story. KC has to be one of my forever characters. I was mad at Charlie for most of this re-read. When I first read this, I empathised more with him, his immature selfishness. This time, maybe because I've grown up or maybe because I just felt differently, I wasn't so forgiving. He's an arsehole, and not in any special way, just an ordinary arsehole like many teenage lads and young men are. Selfish, and afraid, and self-centred, and struggling to understand the suffering he causes. I loved his mum double this time. The way she was sort of disappointed by her son's choices and still supported KC was truly the mark of a good woman.
KC... I don’t know where to start. I found extremely moving this time the clear disconnect between his feelings and Charlie's mistaken impressions when they first hang out. Charlie can't believe a popular, handsome kid like KC would want him. KC can't believe someone as smart and well adjusted as Charlie even would want to talk with him. When at the end of the novel KC admits that in that period it was only the idea of seeing Charlie again that kept him from shooting himself everything fell into place. All the quiet desperation in KC'S actions and words.
The way CSA in sports is depicted and the horrifying psychological consequences it has are still magistrally written. Same as the discourse with Christianity. I was incredibly moved by KC'S tattoo this time around.
And you know what. The ending.
KC made it. In his own, quiet way. He got his siblings back. He's living a normal life. And if that is not a win for this broken boy, I don't know what is. The very last sentences make us hope that this time Charlie is going to let himself love, and be loved by KC. And I hope so. Like his mum said, it will happen when it's meant to. And I believe Mr. Mendicino wanted us to understand that only maturity and growth will allow these two men to accept some love into their lives.

What an amazing book.


ORIGINAL REVIEW 2021
One of my favourite books of the year, and one of my favourite LGBT+ reads in a loooong time.

Recently, I've been hating pretty much everything I've been reading. Everything was either shallow, or boring, or plainly badly written. Then I got this book (for the sake of this review I'm going to consider the three novellas as one single novel, as I've read it as such). on offer for what, 70p? A steal. I was pulled in by the fact that there's an athlete MC (I knoooow!) and by the Italian last name of the author (an LGBT novel written by an Italo-American author? I'm in). I'm so glad that these superficial little factors put this book onto my path.

One thing that stunned me was the time setting. I had the feeling this book was set in the '70/'80s for its entirety. Every time a reference to modernity popped up, like idk, Grindr or texting, my brain scrambled. Everything else felt so... timeless, and so historic as well. A tale as old as time, in a sense. Plus the evocative and very atmospheric writing of the author, it was like this story had a sepia patina all over it (and I know pictures were in colours in the 70s, duh. But you know what I mean).

I loved KC with all my heart. He is the revolving centre of the story. Or better, his journey is. He broke my heart in so many ways: in the beginning, when Charlie still can't believe a popular kid wants to hang out with him, and I could only read the loneliness and sadness in KC's actions, the way he desperately looked for a connection. His vulnerability, raw and intense and selfless, the opposite of Charlie, who was in a way so much more relatable at the same time. A teenager with a normal, loving family, with a sick mum that he doesn't know how to cope with, on the cusp of adulthood without the instruction manual. I felt so much for him, because at his age, I was in his exact position. And his thoughts were mine, selfish and tender at the same time.

With KC, instead, this novel touches on many deep, heavy themes. Neglectful parents and what they do to you, child sexual abuse and sports (in this it reminded of the stunning Mysterious Skin by Scott Heim), the hypocrisy of certain religious circles, religion and identity, and masculinity. And these themes were all delivered so beautifully. It's not common for an author to even choose ONE of these themes and depict it in a poignant, deep way. Mendicino managed to deliver for all of those, and I am truly amazed by his craft and his skills and the depth of his prose.

Part two killed me. I read it with such a sense of dread, such a sadness. It seemed neverending, and I appreciated why it was like that. Part three hurt me in a different way. Charlie was selfish again, and KC couldn't believe he mattered any more than he always thought he did, again. It was hopeless after a brief stint of joy. The epilogue made me cry. It's a sad ending in a way. But it's perfect. We are left to believe, FINALLY, that it has to happen. Now that KC can accept love, and now that Charlie has finally grown up. And I found it beautiful.

Thank you for writing this, Mr. Mendicino. It will stay with me for a long, long time.

[Ulysses Dietz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stealing Home (The Charlie and KC Trilogy)
By Tom Mendicino
Lyrical Press, Kensington Publishing, 2017
Four stars

“After David finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself.” (I Samuel: 18:1)

This is wonderfully written, this trilogy of novellas published originally in 2013 and 2015. Tom Mendicino writes with elegance and care, focusing on important details, choosing dialogue so thoughtfully that no words are wasted. He builds his characters line by line, until we know them as well as we know our own family.

Charlie and KC (aka Kevin Conroy) were high school classmates, Charlie being a sissy nerd and KC being the star of the baseball team. They only meet during the summer after Charlie’s graduation, when he and KC find themselves working together for a moving company. KC is already making waves in a regional farm team, and Charlie couldn’t be more surprised to find out that KC isn’t quite as straight as Charlie might have imagined.

Thus begins a relationship that is by turn as tenuous and tortured as anything the Brontë sisters ever penned. The trilogy is entirely about love – love neglected, love lost, love wasted – but it is as far from romance as could be. In “KC, at Bat,” Mendicino gives us Charlie’s perspective as a teenager moving from small-city public school to the hallowed halls of Dartmouth. In “Travelin’ Man,” we see KC struggling to come to grips with who he is, having never been truly cared about by anyone but Charlie (Charlie, of course, having deeply hurt him). “Lonesome Town” takes us a few years into the future, at the very moment when both young men finally seem to be figuring out who they are in the world.

Charlie never manages to stop seeming like an ass. An anxious, unpopular teenager, he inures himself to the tribulations of his lot, but never seems to understand how lucky he is to have a family who cares about him. He somehow evolves from self-centered teenagers to spoiled college boy, emotionally unable to form solid relationships and treating those he should care for dismissively. Mendicino is not doing this accidentally; our ambivalent feelings toward Charlie have been exquisitely crafted.

KC, on the other hand, is a nearly tragic figure, stumbling from one mess to another, confused by his feelings, starved for genuine affection. His almost comical encounter with a Vietnamese-American go-go boy becomes a weird moment of salvation. KC is a character I could only love, helplessly, as he floundered forward in his life. He is guileless, generous of spirit, and puzzled by all that befalls him, but without bitterness.

The only reason this book didn’t get five stars from me is that it left me emotionally unsatisfied and unhappy. That’s on me, not on the author; but the review had to reflect my personal reaction. Mendicino’s trilogy would have driven me nuts if I’d read the books in series as novellas, expecting the sort of gratifying payoff one expects from a series. All three together, however, feel bigger than the sum of their parts, almost epic, and there’s a coherent logic to the finale that works wonderfully as literature, even if it left me feeling oddly broken and sad.

This is the difference between “real” gay literature and gay romance. It’s also the reason that, at my age, I mostly read romance. It’s not Tom Mendicino’s fault – he’s a great writer, and he should be proud of this book.

[Sofia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this in three parts when they were published as short novellas. My rating reflects my feelings about the story as a whole.

KC at Bat
Travellin' Man
Lonesome Town

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this novel over the holidays; took this long to write a review; here's why....the pages within stuck with me long after i finished the last page, moved me so deeply that I wanted to give it a little time before posting a few paltry words that cannot possibly describe such an emotional novel, but suffice to say, I freakin' LOVED it.

The three novellas collected in novel-length are well written, offering both raw beauty, and timeless endearment. The dialogue--though at times kitsy and lame (but, isn't that how young love is?)--was perfect, and lept from the pages to remind even this old guy that what rings true today in first-love pairings, rang true in my era (70s) as well; being so infatuated and in love with someone for the first time that you become someone alien to yourself; do things you'd never have imagined, and just as easily, ruin the chance of that which could have been.

left me emotionally drained; with lots of highs and angry & sad at times. I wanted to reach within the pages to smack some sense into the main characters more than I can recall; that much angst. Of course, no one ever said experiencing first-love was easy, and Mendicino's saga proves that point; ten-fold.

Highly recommended!

[Aussie54 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't think I'm the target audience for this book. Others may enjoy it more. I didn’t like the writing style ... it felt like I was skimming along the surface, and I didn't develop any feelings for the story or characters.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got it so I could read the last two books. Charlie is still such a cad and I don't really see any glimpse of hope that he will change. I'm choosing to believe otherwise, though, because KC deserves a happy ending.

[Ted · Rating 5 out of 5]

well written, well developed characters, poignant

[Taqiyah · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. I don’t think this book is for me. They writing was good though I didn’t enjoy it. I couldn’t connect to either or the characters or the story