Bridge Across the Ocean

By Randy Boyd

In 1988, Derek Mayfield should be celebrating the best year of his life.

After years of struggling with his weight, his self-confidence, and his sexuality, the 26-year-old Black gay man has finally begun embracing the person he was meant to be. Then he receives devastating news: he is HIV positive.

Searching for an escape from fear, uncertainty, and the growing AIDS crisis, Derek travels to Cancun, Mexico, for what he hopes will be a brief vacation. Instead, he finds something unexpected.

Rob and Skeeter Velarde are two straight, white teenage brothers spending the summer with their mother in paradise. To them, Derek is everything they admire-cool, athletic, adventurous, and wise beyond his years. Before long, the three become inseparable, spending their days exploring beaches, sailing tropical waters, telling stories, playing sports, and chasing adventure beneath the Mexican sun.

For Derek, it feels like a second chance at the carefree youth he never had.

But friendships built on admiration and innocence can only survive so long without the truth.

As Derek grows closer to the family, he must reveal the secrets he has been carrying: that he is gay, that he is living with HIV, and that his feelings for Rob have become far more complicated than friendship.

When the truth finally emerges, all four lives are changed forever.

Based on a true story, Bridge Across the Ocean is a moving and thought-provoking novel about friendship, race, identity, mentorship, loss, and the search for hope in the shadow of the AIDS epidemic. Part summer adventure, part coming-of-age story, and part emotional journey of self-discovery, it explores the transformative power of human connection across the boundaries that too often divide us.

A Lambda Literary Award Finalist for Best Small Press Title.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0966533380
• ISBN13: 9780966533385
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: West Beach Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.89 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

just ..............EXCELLENT !

THIS IS *** NOT *** A CHEAP THRILL SEX BOOK!With an overtone of "The Hardy Boys In The 21st Century"this book delivers an enthralling story with characterdevelopment focusing on teen and adult sexuality. I reallyread in fear of coming to the final pages: losing the good friends,conversations, and stories it provided.Life lessons and advice are abundant here, some reminding meof sources of wisdom like Ann Rand, Alcoholics Anomyous, The Tao,and many many more, refined by real experience centered on, but not limited to, sex.It's smooth, easy, laid back, reflective reading; and I'm going to look intomore of this author's works!WARNING: IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A CHEAP ORGASMIC THRILL . . . THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR YOU. FOR THOSE WITH A MIND . . . ENJOY!

Great

I found that this book address issues dealing with inter racial dating and under age relationship very well. It was written very well.

Not "Death In Venice" but "Life In Cancun (and beyond)"

This is a beautiful, meaningful story, so sensitively handled and honestly revealed, that portrays the life-giving strength of love that can cross diverse gaps: black and white, old and young, straight and gay, physically "pure" and HIV "adulterated".Recently testing positive for HIV, 26-year-old artist Derek Mayfield, a gay black man, takes a vacation in Cancun to give himself time to reassess his commitment to his life and its purpose. While there, he encounters and falls in love with Rob Velarde, a beautiful 16-year-old white "god" who was also vacationing there with his younger brother, Skeeter, and his divorced mother, Roberta. Rob was the embodiment of all that Derek had spent a lifetime desiring and wanting to create undying love with--yet here ten years his junior and still an under-age child under the control of his parents. Instead of just keeping his distance and obsessively observing this "Tadzio" from afar, Derek steps right into Rob's life and the life of his family, creating a multi-layered relationship of friendship and love that would mutually affect and benefit all of them for the rest of their lives. Author Randy Boyd with his perfect writing does not flinch in his honesty about the definite sexual appeal of a youth like Rob, and the turmoil of desire versus responsibility that a man like Derek can undergo. But in genuinely taking Rob into his heart, Derek is also nurturing in this incubator his own precious, surviving Self, and in his presentation of the reality and example of his generous and decent character to the two relentlessly curious and open boys, and, ultimately, to their mother, he is also, himself, becoming aware of his own infinite value. It is not only Derek's ability to enjoy and absorb the youthful vibrancy of Rob and Skeeter, but also in his willingness to give of himself to their benefit that he has achieved what he wanted to find in Cancun.The story also deals with the extreme hunger of loneliness and separation that exists in even the most golden of lives, and how what is the true perversion that comes from the combination of youth with adult is not the danger that an adult's sexual attraction could distort the psyche of the youth, but that the genuine love that youthful innocence craves is blocked by other adults who have already been distorted by their fears. This novel sets to right again the reaching and arcing path of love that links what otherwise would be separated by a turbulent and ferocious ocean.I highly recommend this book to anyone with an open heart and I am eager to read it again so that once more I can fully experience the beauty, compassion, and great fun that was Cancun with Derek, Rob, and Skeeter.

An exploration of friendship

While on vacation in Cancun, Derek, a gay black man with HIV, befriends two teenaged straight white boys. The story centers on the building of the friendship between them, with Derek's coming out to them as gay and as HIV+ and with Derek's intense attraction to one of the two boys. Boyd eloquently portrays the struggles of Derek coming to terms with his unrequited desire for the oldest boy, and the sometimes wavering effects of time and distance on a friendship. He does succumb to gooey sentimentality towards the end, but it doesn't take away from the grace of the novel.

Pretty damned awesome

Wasn't sure what I was getting myself into, but damn, I was rewarded. Didn't know if they were gonna sleep together until the very end, but that was almost besides the point. Definitely felt like I was there in Cancun with the Boys Club, rubbing sun tan lotion on each other and dancing in the sweaty night.