I’ve always intended my newsletter to be interactive, so I was happy to get a great question from one reader…

Thank you for your newsletters! I first read Boy Toy in 2010 and it’s one of my favorite books ever! Ironic how society is quick to ban the book but still generally condones and excuses the issues it deals with. I thought about Josh’s experiences with graduation, college, sports, and prom as I went through them too, and even ended up in Maryland as an adult. Any word on a sequel, or the companion book I heard about?

First of all, thank you so much for your kind words! And yes, we live in strange times, when people who lack the capacity to truly understand art somehow get to determine what belongs on a library shelf.

All that aside, let’s get to the meat of your question: the sequel/companion book to Boy Toy.

Let me ramble a little bit… When I was writing Boy Toy, it occurred to me that in order to write it properly, I had to know everything Eve was thinking and doing, even though the story was from Josh’s POV. And as I moved through the story, I realized that I knew what everyone in it was thinking and doing — Rachel, Zik, Mom, Dad… I could write the same story over and over, just from different POVs, uncovering new bits each time.

I became, honestly, a little obsessed. While I was working on the book, I was deep into it, and really became enamored of the idea of telling the same story from six or seven different angles. It would be a massive undertaking.

Truthfully, I still think of it now and then. But the fever mostly broke when I finished writing Boy Toy, though enough madness lingered that I really, really wanted to tell the story of Eve. Boy Toy’s Toy, I would title it, and it would be a savage look into the heart of a child molester.

So…what happened?

Two things happened. First, I was really burnt out when I finished Boy Toy. And second, well, another book came out on the same topic, around the same time as Boy Toy. An adult book, purporting to tell the teacher’s side of the story. And honestly, I didn’t think much of that book. It felt tawdry in a way I strove against in Boy Toy. And I became concerned that if I wrote my companion book, people would think I was ripping off this other book.

Between that concern and the burn-out, my fire for the companion book was snuffed out, and now it lives only as a couple hundred words of a first chapter and then some notes on my hard drive.

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