1984: Bernie Boyle, his novel unpublished, stumbles onto a minor fortune and runs to Asia. He’s having amorous adventures in Manila when his book becomes a controversial bestseller and he becomes a target of the narrow-minded. Bernie, oblivious, finds love on a small, faraway island. An earthquake and tsunami backdrop a tumultuous climax to this eye-opening, unusual story.

TBoaTYO lifts the covers off the 1980s “father and son” scene in the Philippines, with a cast of bumbling expats, lovable boys, and a few opposing forces. Breezily written with nods to Burroughs and Proust, TBoaTYO is, finally, a love story.

Set in California in the early 1980s, A Natural Lizard Activity is narrated by 13-year-old Kim, a sexually awakening boy, who tells his tale with a sharp eye and deadpan humor. Kim moves in with the level-headed Bernie. Their easy life and deepening love is strained when Kim’s loony father trips out on his “Golden Road.” Kim enlists Bernie in his search for the old man – and something more.

Set in the 1990s, What I Live For finds an older but still viable Bernie wasting his life in an obscure outpost on the island of Borneo. He’s bought a rundown hotel on the edge of a jungle. He trades stories and more with a motley clientele of visiting scientists looking for undiscovered species. As political upheaval and the madness of the outside world begin to intrude, Bernie is forced to make a choice.