During the following years he slowly recalls details from that night, but these fragments are not enough to explain what happened to him, and he begins to believe that he may have been the victim of an alien encounter. Neil McCormick is fully aware of the events from that summer of 1981. Wise beyond his years, curious about his developing sexuality, Neil found what he perceived to be love and guidance from his baseball coach. Now, ten years later, he is a teenage hustler, a terrorist of sorts, unaware of the dangerous path his life is taking. His recklessness is governed by idealized memories of his coach, memories that unexpectedly change when Brian comes to Neil for help and, ultimately, the truth.

"Elegantly written."
--Time Out New York

"[Heim] teases out the pleasures of cruelty in language that scalpels one minute, unfurls lushly the next."
Village Voice

"Grand, uncanny, horrific and sweet. . . . Those who give themselves to it will be haunted."
--Lambda Book Report

"Unforgettable. . . . Quite simply, In Awe is awesome: inordinately powerful and alarming, terrifying and breathtaking. A transcendent, bittersweet novel of obsession and pain, love and loathing, memory and desire. Heim is testing the limits of his dynamic, raw vision."
-Kansas City Star

"The ripple of danger beneath the surface of Scott Heim's In Awe should serve as a warning to anyone expecting a casual ride: this is a book that means to take you places. A patina of malevolence overhangs Heim's Kansas, and even the quietest moments can have the most terrifying consequences for his trio of misfits, Boris, Sarah, and Harriet. The story draws us forward toward its heart like the best of spiderwebs."
--Jim Grimsley