Old Pal

A shimmering, arresting debut novel about an outsider roaming the American West and running away from his past—and the three-day journey that will force him to decide what type of man he wants to be On those highways sometimes you could see so far the distance blurred into itself, endless blue band of horizon curving woolly in the haze. Twenty-five-year-old Shine knows where he’s come from and where he’s going, but that’s about it. Two years after leaving Canada, and newly outed as a trans man at his job in Oregon, Shine rides the bus east in search of anonymity, steady work, and a place to begin again. But when his bus breaks down in a small town in Montana, hours away from his destination, he has a chance encounter with Brick, an eccentric local whose generosity is as intense as it is unsettling. What begins with a meal and the offer of a place to sleep becomes an unexpected journey through back roads and uneasy intimacies. Drawn to Brick’s kindness yet wary of his volatility, Shine must navigate the shifting boundaries between care and control, protection and possession. As their time together turns treacherous, he is forced to confront not only Brick’s intentions, but the shame and fear that have kept him running from his family. In taut, luminous prose, Kai Conradi explores what it means to assert one’s identity under the constant threat of exposure and the weight of other people’s expectations. Suspenseful, richly atmospheric, and deeply compassionate, Old Pal is an electric exploration of loneliness, masculinity, and the perilous human need to belong.