Absolute Brightness

By: James Lecesne

From Trevor Project founder and Academy Award-winner James Lecesne, this YA novel about a gay teen who is murdered inspired the hit Off-Broadway show The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey. Now available in paperback.

Phoebe’s life in Neptune, New Jersey, is somewhat unremarkable. She helps her mom out with her hair salon, she goes to school, and she envies her perfect older sister. But everything changes when Leonard arrives.
Leonard is an orphan, a cousin who Phoebe never knew she had. When he comes to live with Phoebe’s family, he upsets the delicate balance of their lives. He’s gay and confident about who he is. He inspires the people around him—he sees people not as they are, but as they hope to be.
One day, Leonard goes missing. Phoebe, her family, and her community fight to understand what happened, and to make sense of why someone might want to extinguish the beautiful absolute brightness that was Leonard Pelkey.
From an Academy Award-winning writer, actor, and activist in the LGBTQ community, this is a groundbreaking story about love, prejudice, and the aftermath of a senseless murder. This young adult novel inspired the critically-acclaimed Off-Broadway show The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey, and is now available in paperback for the first time.