From GLAAD Media, Stonewall Book, and Lambda Literary Award winner Bill Konigsberg comes Cage Free, a midlife coming-of-age story that bursts with the heat of a Florida summer.

Kurt is staring down his fiftieth birthday when he walks into his Manhattan apartment and discovers his longtime partner Wally in a highly compromising position…with a husky gentleman dressed as Santa Claus. Just like that, Kurt’s tidy (perhaps too tidy) life implodes.

Devastated but determined, on his phone Kurt drafts a Post-Wally Recovery Plan: 1) Find out if I’m still desirable to men. 2) Get laid.

Armed with fond memories of youthful mischief, Kurt flees New York for Florida, hoping to soothe his wounded pride—and maybe score a little action—at a run-down, clothing-optional motel for men. Instead, his hookup with the check-in guy ends abruptly when the poor man drops dead well before a happy ending. Through a combination of confusion, embarrassment, and terrible timing, Kurt then becomes the acting manager of Palatial Palms.

Running a ramshackle gay nudist resort wasn’t exactly part of his Recovery Plan, but Kurt soon finds himself surrounded by a colorful new cast of quirky characters: a taciturn caretaker, a trippy neighbor, a crew of younger, woker friends, and a hunky daddy who just might be boyfriend material—if Kurt can get out of his own way.

Just as his new alternative life begins to feel like home, Kurt becomes the target of extortion by an overly tanned, permanently amped-up musclehead. As the situation escalates, his new ragtag circle rallies around him, and Kurt discovers that the path to happiness sometimes requires losing everything—including your clothes.

Bill Konigsberg is the award-winning author of seven young adult novels. The Porcupine of Truth won the PEN Center USA Literary Award and the Stonewall Book Award in 2016. Openly Straight won the Sid Fleischman Award for Humor, was a finalist for the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award and Lambda Literary Award in 2014 and has been translated into five languages. His debut novel, Out of the Pocket, won the Lambda Literary Award in 2009. The Music of What Happens, released in 2019, received two starred reviews, and has been optioned for a film. The Bridge, released in 2020, received two starred reviews and was optioned for a film by Amazon. In 2018, The National Council of Teachers of English’s Assembly on Literature for Adolescents established the Bill Konigsberg Award for Acts and Activism for Equity and Inclusion through Young Adult Literature.

Prior to turning his attention to writing books for teens, Bill was a sportswriter and editor for The Associated Press and ESPN.com. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona, with his husband, Chuck, and their Australian Labradoodle, Buford. Sadly, their eldest doodle, Mabel, passed in 2024.