Works by
J.G. Hayes
(aka Joseph George Hayes)
(Artist, Writer)

Fiction

• Pearls of Wisdom from Grandma (1997)
  In the same tradition as Sisters and Simple Abundance, Pearls of Wisdom from Grandma explores the deep-rooted connections between grandmother and grandchild and the boundary between memory and experience. It shares with readers a timeless string of wisdom, warmth and wit from celebrities, political and business leaders, authors, children and others eager to reminisce about the profound effect their grandmothers had on their lives.
  
  With an introduction by Demi Moore, Pearls of Wisdom from Grandma is full of interesting personal stories and quotes from a multicultural swath of American society, from people like George and Barbara Bush, Alice Hoffman, Margaret Atwood, Edwidge Dandicott and Toni Braxton. The grandmother of noted fashion designer Vera Wang once told her: "Always eat before going out, because it's very unfeminine to eat like a horse." Writer Dawna Markova tells us how her grandmother taught her to look at a boy who was missing his legs and see the love and riches he possessed, more so than the elegant man in a fur coat standing next to him. "Feel what it is like to be him," her grandmother said. "Feel his heart. Now look at him again. Look at that heart. It's pure gold and wide as the sky. He's a rich old soul whose path is to teach all of us about joy."
  
  Together, these voices of love paint a heartfelt portrait of everything a grandmother can be: a healer, a guide and inspiration.

• Now Batting For Boston: More Stories By J. G. Hayes  (2005)
  To thine own self be true—no matter what it costs
  Acclaimed author J. G. Hayes returns to the gritty streets of South Boston for the much-anticipated sequel to his critically heralded debut, This Thing Called Courage. Now Batting for Boston: More Stories by J.G. Hayes goes home to the bars, housing projects and D Street bedrooms of Southie, where you can feel like a stranger in your own skin, just trying to survive growing up gay among working-class Irish-Catholics who don't want to hear the hard truths about their sons.
  
  Unlike my father, it wasn't only Life I hoped to jump into during my long light-gazing vigils on the roof. In particular, it was a particular bar in a particular part of town, a bar whose blacked-out windows were lit up like Christmas every day of the year. It was a bar for people like me. For although I may have looked like my father, and loved baseball like my father, I was not heterosexual, like my father. And all the prayers to St. Anthony in the world hadn't changed that.
  
  You find them anywhere in Southie—from Castle Island to Carson Beach, from Sunday mass at St. Anthony's to the Tuesday night hack league at the HockeyTown rink. Men, young and not so young, struggle with their sexuality, outsiders in their own homes searching for someplace to belong. Now Batting for Boston is a moving collection of stories, intense and gripping, with no guarantees of a happy ending. Just like life in South Boston.
  
  With Terry, it was like, Jesus; it was like the whole world went away. When our lips met for the first time. It was like ... it was like you could stay that way forever. It was like you fell into a different planet, you fell through a hole in the ground and came to the center of the earth and you were still falling, wondering but not really caring when you were gonna land. Electricity. Like someone put one of them joke handshake-buzzer things up against your mouth and clicked it on.

• Map of the Harbor Islands (2006) -- Nominated, 2006 Lambda Literary Award for Male Fiction
  A moving story about friends—one gay and one not—and the power of redemption, growth, and love!
  
  A Map of the Harbor Islands is the long-awaited novel from J. G. Hayes, the critically acclaimed bestselling author of This Thing Called Courage and Now Batting for Boston. This book charts the turbulent life courses of two South Boston friends, Danny O'Connor and Petey Harding, from their childhoods through their adult lives. 'Golden Boy' Petey has it all going for him—brains, charisma, and his close friendship with Danny. Then an accident on the baseball field changes everything. Petey wakes from a coma a different person, completely different from the boy Danny knew and loved. Gone are the old habits, the old joy of baseball, the old way of thinking. Petey is left with a stutter and a new appreciation for life that Danny sometimes just cannot understand. Petey begins to tell stories and make maps—dragging a grudging Danny along. Over the years Danny begins to understand Petey, and slowly, he also begins to learn more about himself. Then Petey confesses that he is gay, which sends Danny on an odyssey he never dreamed could happen.

  Petey's map is one of hope for Danny and him, to escape the urban ghetto of South Boston. They are two wayfaring "bestest friends" who swear a love for one another until the very end. A Map of the Harbor Islands carries the reader on a journey into the beauty of the world, physically and emotionally, along a current of love, friendship, self-growth, and redemption. The prose is all J. G. Hayes—metaphysical, moving—and always real.

• Bar Stories (1999), Jack Fritscher and Scott Brassart, eds.

• Men on Men 2000: Best New Gay Fiction (2000), David Bergman, ed.