Dead Rock Stars by Wes Funk Published by Backroads Press Reviewed by Gail Jansen $15.95 ISBN: 978-0-9781396-1-8 Growing up different from others always makes its mark on who we become as adults. For Wes Funk’s main character Jackson Hill, in his novel Dead Rock Stars, growing up gay on a farm in small town Saskatchewan, with two red-necked brothers and a past that haunts him, it’s a mark that has led to isolation, no matter how far he thinks he has come. Yet as Funk writes, “there comes a time when a person has to make peace with his hostility.” In his engaging story about Hill and the Dead Rock Stars theme that plays on throughout his life, Funk subtly pushes the reader to look beyond the stereotype to see the man that Hill has become, and to see the very real issues he faces in confronting his past; a confrontation he is helped gently through with the aid of the handsome and charismatic Frank. While we have all faced such moments at one point or another in our lives – defining moments that lead us to embrace life, or run from it – in Hill’s case it’s a run…