BEFORE SUMMER is a collection of sixteen interrelated short stories about a gay youth's coming of age in small town Iowa during the 1940s and 1950s. The book is an affectionate and sometimes sorrowful portrait of a bygone way of life in a small Iowa farming town and what it was like growing up gay in such a community. The first story is set in 1940 when the narrator, Lach MacLennan, is seven years old and the final one in 1956 when he graduates from college. One story takes place on an army base during World War II and three are set on a college campus; all the others are in the fictional town of Tools Rock that serves as backdrop for the narration. In some stories, Lach is the central character, but in others he is an observer of other people and the events of their lives. Each story explores Lach's youth as he realizes and comes to terms with his sexuality and the restrictions as well as the possibilities of his life.