Keith Hale is author of the novels Cody (Clicking Beat on the Brink of Nada) and Letters to a Shooting Star. He has edited an anthology of gay literature from antiquity through the First World War (Ode to Boy), a collection of Lord Byron's love poetry for boys (Edleston), a collection of Rupert Brooke's letters that had been sealed for eighty years due to their homosexual themes (Friends and Apostles), a collection of Georgian Poetry, and editions of poetry by Shakespeare, Housman, and Brooke. Hale wrote the first and perhaps only account of gay life in the Balkans before the walls of Communism crumbled in his travelogue In the Land of Alexander, and he explored how the military's ban on gays affected the life of one ROTC cadet in his book Torn Allegiances. Hale is a native of Mayflower, Arkansas, and also has made his home in Austin, Amsterdam, and Guam.

By turns funny, romantic, erotic, and sad, this evocative novel brilliantly recreates the landscape of late adolescence, when friendships seem eternal and loves reincarnate. Set in Arkansas but first published in The Netherlands, Clicking Beat on the Brink of Nada--or Cody, as it was titled in the U.S.--quickly won praise from reviewers and readers across Europe and North America and caught the attention of William S. Burroughs, Jonathan Williams, and other writers who befriended the young author (Hale began writing the novel when he was sixteen). The first edition of the book was immediately banned in the United Kingdom during Margaret Thatcher's Operation Tiger. Today, Clicking Beat remains unique in its treatment of teen homosexuality, socialism, and existentialism. New readers will discover a classic of gay literature. Those who have read the book previously will want to read it again to discover the new delights of the revised edition.

Don't overlook Keith Hale's Clicking Beat on the Brink of Nada. Hale commands much of J. R. Ackerley's honesty, intimacy, and ease of style. Real warmth. - Jonathan Williams