A 2004 Ferro-Grumley Award Winner!
A 2004 InsightOut.com Violet Quill Award Finalist!

A bittersweet story of love, loss, and the search for honesty.

Through It Came Bright Colors is the story of Neill Cullane, a closeted, conflicted 21-year-old who lives in two worlds, light years and a short drive of his beat-up VW bug apart. At home, he's the dutiful son of Frank and Grace, and devoted brother to Peter, whose battle with a cruel, disfiguring cancer pulls the Cullane family together, however reluctantly. But in the shadows of the San Francisco underworld, Neill finds release with his secret lover Vince Malone, a beautiful junkie/philosopher/thief whose burning desire for truth lights the path Neill always knew he'd travel. Through Vince, Neill learns about honesty and love and finds the courage to confront his family in the face of tragedy and loss.

I told myself I wasn't ready yet; I told myself they weren't ready.

As Neill watches his younger brother endure surgery after surgery, he is forced to confront his own physicality, and by extension, his long dormant sexuality. It is as if through his brother's mortal struggle, Neill awakens to his own body and to the erotic nature of life itself, finding the courage to act on his sexual feelings with the seductive and enigmatic Vince. The troubled young men's secret affair inspires Neill to speak truths that lay silently, safely, beneath the Cullane family's carefully maintained surface, gradually stripping away layers of the polished, idealized façade. And the chance to live openly, honestly, inspires Neill to reveal the biggest truth of all on a journey of self-discovery that travels through the Bay-area suburbs to the San Francisco Tenderloin district, and finally, to the High Sierra wilderness where he and Vince face the truth about love, loss, and family.

Author Trebor Healey's rich, lyrical prose provides a unique and intimate look at one gay man's struggle to live openly and honestly, to love and to be loved, free from shame and guilt. Through It Came Bright Colors is a compelling saga of emotional, spiritual, and poetic depth.