Good Boys: 2a Novel

College buddies redefine their relationships through the mire of passing time in this tiresome story of ambiguous male love. Michael, Drew and Chris, future doctor, lawyer and writer, respectively, begin their friendship as freshmen, quoting Star Trek and snippets of French between keggers at a California university. Throughout the following decade, their murkily defined feelings for one another and for various women entangle them in several overlapping love triangles. Dispersed to different parts of the country, Chris discovers he is gay and each becomes part of a couple: Michael and Merry, Drew and Dana, Chris and Carl. AIDS and the socioeconomic uncertainty of the '80s and '90s precipitate the standard hardships. Reidinger ( Intimate Evil ) writes articulately, but he consistently advances his story through explanation rather than action. The male bonds at the heart of the novel remain unconvincing, while the men themselves are stereotypes, and there is a belabored quality even to the narrative's best insights. (June)