Excerpt from The Gospel of Winter by Brendan Kiely, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

As I slid past a knot of people beside the piano, trying to make a break for the office, one of Old Donovan's former colleagues, Mike Kowolski, saw me and waved. He shuffled across the foyer, balancing the weight of his belly on his legs. Mark, his son, followed behind. If Mark hadn't had his father's strong, hammerhead jaw, it would've been hard to believe they were related. He strode around CDA with a cool, confident distance I always imagined was boredom. We met at the foot of the grand staircase, and Mike slapped down hard on my shoulder. "Look at you working the party like a solicitor. My God, Aidan, it's been a while. You're as tall as I am, and since when did your old man let you run around with hair like that? A man shouldn't hide his eyes." He wagged his finger between us. "You'll introduce Mark to a few men tonight, won't you? Can't have you grabbing all the internship opportunities before your friend here, right?"

"What's up, Donovan?" Mark said. We were both sophomores at CDA, but the last time he had said hello to me was at the mandatory swim test at the beginning of the year. To call us friends was a joke. He was already a cocaptain of the swim team, and he'd had to greet all of us, one by one, before we dove into the water and proved we could make it across the pool and back without drowning. Mostly, I thought of him as the Bronze Man because his skin was naturally amber all year round, and the tight curls against his head never seemed to grow or get trimmed. We'd been in Sunday school together, but by middle school the only time we really talked was when our fathers had made our families get together for dinner, and, of course, the last time had been years ago, before my father had left the firm to start his own.

"Mark's got to talk to some of the men," Mike said. "There's no way around it. This isn't a party, it's a job fair, right?" He nodded to his son. "

I know, Dad."

"It's all in the way you look at things, boys. Make it an opportunity." Mike poked me in the chest.

Mark glanced back and forth between his father and me. "Well, maybe Aidan should show me around, then."

Mike took Mark by the arm.

"Carpe diem," Mark said. "Look, I got it. But I can just hang with Aidan right now. It's cool."

"I'll tour him around," I said, trying to sound as cool as possible.

Mark tried to pull out of his father's grip, but Mike wouldn't let go. He leaned toward us. "It's about focus, boys. It's not a game. Focus, focus, focus. When you see something you want, you've got to go after it and fucking nail it." He smiled at us and pulled me in close too, so we were locked tightly together. There was a whiff of shrimp in his breath. "Right?" he asked.

"You said it," I responded.

Mark gave me a thanks-a-lot smile, and Mike pushed his son toward a circle of men by the fireplace in the sitting room. Although they made space for them, Mark looked through the space between shoulders to me. His startlingly light blue eyes landed on me with only a glance, and stuck. Get me the hell out of here, he intimated. I wasn't used to anyone looking to me for help. Soon enough, though, Mark was doing the drill I was accustomed to doing at Mother's parties—rolling out the résumé—and he was beyond saving for the moment.

Go take your face off, I wanted to say to Mike. It's what I wanted to say to many of the kids at CDA too. Take off those big, plastic faces that bulldoze their way into rooms with their fucking grins. I hung out with kids occasionally—sometimes the debate club or the chess club would have dinner at someone's house, or I'd go sit in the stands with other kids to watch the field hockey team or the football team—but I'd sit there listening to everyone talk to one another as if confidence had come to them as a birthright. Nobody ever said I don't know or I'm afraid, and they acted like the masks they wore were their real faces and that they could sustain themselves forever on their own self-assurance—like they really believed they didn't need anybody else. What was that John Donne poem we'd read in Weinstein's class, "No Man Is An Island"? Not here. We were a goddamn social archipelago that called itself a community. Why did I feel like I was the only one who lived in a nightmare?

Excerpted from The Gospel of Winter by Brendan Kiely. Copyright © 2014 by Brendan Kiely. Excerpted by permission of Margaret K. McElderry Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.