In Development
Outliving
the Fire
Requiem for a Quiet Violence
It's 1984, and some loves cost everything.
Alex Povanno is a college sophomore hiding two truths: his desire for his roommate, Evan Morningstar, and the abuse simmering in his own bigoted home. When Alex follows Evan into a fraternity to stay close to him, hazing turns into a nightmare of violence that leaves him broken — and when his parents discover the truth, they hand him over to a "conversion therapist" determined to torture the gay out of him.
Alex escapes into the neon glow of Vivienne's, a nightclub run by the magnetic Sergio Volkov — by night the breathtaking drag queen Vivienne, by day a man fighting to protect the family he's built from society's castoffs. Under Sergio's protection, Alex finds work, friendship, and slowly, an unspoken love neither man was looking for but couldn't resist either.
As the AIDS crisis tears through their community, claiming friends one by one, and an old flame resurfaces with a glittering, poisoned world of wealth and secrets, Alex must decide what kind of life — and what kind of love — is worth fighting for.
Spanning a decade defined by fear, loss, and the fierce joy of chosen family, Outliving the Fire is a story about surviving the unsurvivable, and finding that love can still burn bright in the ashes.
