Ambrose Through the Tall Grass by Nathan Korn (Gay Modern Classics) [PRE-ORDER - Ships October 24th 2025]

''You get kidnapped, or you don’t. You get cancer, or you don’t. You fall in love, you fall in a hole, you fall flat on your face on your way to accept your Academy Award — or you don’t.''

Ambrose Looper longs for more than a rural dead-end existence in 1980s Oklahoma.

His only friend, the fortune-telling Linney Cadle, sees his escape in her bedazzled tarot cards. It’s only a matter of time until he leaves Cherish, Oklahoma behind for good.

But when a brutal kidnapping rocks the small town of Cherish, Ambrose’s life is turned upside-down. Amidst the chaos, Ambrose is pulled into the orbit of the victim’s rebellious older brother— and what starts as a search for comfort and support gradually becomes an uneasy process of sexual and emotional awakening for the two alienated boys.

From the stagnant comfort of rural Oklahoma to the bright lights and dark alleyways of New York City, Ambrose’s journey of discovery will take him far away from the only world he’s ever known, both geographically and emotionally. 

A hazy, gorgeously written coming of age tale, in the tradition of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch and Gore Vidal’s The City and the Pillar, Ambrose Through the Tall Grass is a profound meditation on growing up an outsider. 

'A coming-out novel whose distinctive voice, sensitive characterisation and vivid depictions held my attention throughout.'
David Fernbach, Gay Men’s Press