The Many Talents of Bram Banner

Back in the late 1980s, high school juniors Bram Banner and Patrick McKenna kissed next to an ice river on a winter's night. A whoosh was heard, followed by a ghostly scream. Now, more than ten years later, Bram still can't forget the kiss than led to a local urban legend, and he certainly can't forget Patrick. But Bram is a decent, obedient guy with a hideous sense of wardrobe and a fun if juvenile job, and changes to his ordinary life are not usually welcome. As long as he has new bands to listen to, and a revolting first date once in a while, life is pretty okay the way it is. His mother Meredith and his cousin Trent live in the same small Ohio town where Bram grew up, and Bram continues to work in the same interminable music store in Columbus. Patrick's been away for years, and the worst change Bram sees is Patrick's family farm slipping into ruin. Abruptly summoned by Trent late in the month of April, ostensibly to move a few couches, Bram unearths a plethora of dissatisfying revisions to the everyday predictability: His late-forties mother is dating college guys and the college guys seem okay with it, Trent's in the midst of a messy breakup with his cheating wife, and Patrick has returned to take up the vacant gym teacher role while, of course, coaching the same baseball team that he and Bram once played for. Through a series of fortuitous and eerie mishaps, it's clear that Bram's and Patrick's relatives, those alive and those a little less alive, want the two of them to reconnect. Patrick's aloofness keeps Bram guessing what either of them really want, but with Patrick as his friend again, Bram can scrutinize the past. It helps him learn that he has more value than he's been able to notice in himself, but his talents have been noted by his friends, family, and Patrick all along.