Cool: The Social History of Jon Speck

Cool: The Social History of Jon Speck is an original novel exploring sexuality, perceptions of masculinity, and the search for identity in a celebrity-obsessed culture. Twenty-four, Jon lives a solitary life in New York working a job he can't respect, missing a hip college girlfriend whom he's convinced once made him whole, and failing into new love affairs with pornography, popular culture, drugs, and alcohol. The bleak situation changes when two characters re-enter his life: Greg, a drug-dealing ladies man on the run from the police; and Mac, a coke-snorting investment banker living with his rich and dysfunctional parents. When Jon loses his job and best friend in a blur of substance abuse, the three of them leave on a road trip. Across America he rediscovers old lovers, loses Greg and Mac to their own tragedies, and finally questions his values and determines what it really means to be cool.