From the first-edition dustjacket (1986):

The flamboyant town of Cherry Grove, serenely situated along the beach of Fire Island, is the setting for this unusually poignant and joyful love story. In this cozy little summer community, the old man, a world-famous novelist, young at heart and beloved by everyone, lives with Joe, some thirty years a younger man, sleek and tan, who loves the old man and considers himself lucky to be living with him for the last ten years (unaware that friend consider the old man just as lucky). Surrounded by steady friends and new acquaintances, the old man and Joseph are deeply content to enjoy another summer until life deals them one of its usual, unexpected hands.

A hauntingly beautiful story of love and death and loss, of grief and surviving, Joseph and the Old Man has a lush lyricism and deep emotional power reminiscent of Andrew Holleran's Dancer from the Dance and Edmind White's Nocturnes for the King of Naples. With this first novel Christopher Davis emerges as a brilliant young writer who will take his place in the front rank of the growing renaissance of superb gay writers now unfolding in this country.