Save Chad by Bob Keaton
Chad and Jamie met in college, but they were so different that a friendship seemed unlikely. Against the odds they became life-long best friends. In this coming-of-age story both guys are confused and uncertain who they are and who they want to be, as well as where they fit in.
Their story begins as Jamie is having a crisis. It’s less than a year until graduation, and he still has no idea about his future. No job lined up or even a prospect. The only thing he knows is he doesn’t want to return to his small hometown where he grew up feeling like a misfit. And he needs to come to terms with something that happened during his summer internship as a newspaper reporter. That unsettling incident could drastically alter his future. Chad helps him work through it, even rescuing him when he is suicidal.
After college their lives take different paths. Jamie leaves for a job with Atlanta’s major newspaper, later marries, has a family, and becomes a successful political journalist. Chad moves to San Francisco where he explores the world of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll during the 70s before building his real estate empire. Despite the distance, they stay in touch and see each other a few times over the course of many years.
Now Chad is hospitalized and seriously ill, drifting in and out of consciousness. Can Jamie save him? As Jamie sits at Chad’s bedside, their past is revealed through flashbacks and memories in this story of male bonding.
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Author Bio:
Save Chad is the most personal of the four novels I’ve written (Grayer than Grey, Our Last Shot, SEX is nothing more than a game of tennis), but it is by no means autobiographical. Instead, many of my feelings and viewpoints are reflected in the characters in this story about a friendship that develops in college between two guys from totally different backgrounds, each searching for his identity. Each goes through a personal crisis, and they bond over the experiences they share, the good and the bad.
As the novel opens, it’s many years later. Even though they now live on opposite sides of the country, they’ve stayed in touch, but they haven’t seen each other in almost 10 years. Now one of them is seriously ill and in the hospital. As the present-day story unfolds, the past is revealed in a series of flashbacks.
Save Chad has been the most difficult of the four novels I’ve written. It went through many incarnations during the past five years. At one point, I put it aside, ready to give up on trying to tell the story and wrote my third novel (Grayer than Grey). But something about the manuscript kept drawing me back. It was a story that needed to be told. I hope you enjoy reading it.