Life lessons.

Bil Wright's own personal experiences imbue the characters in his first novel, a coming-of-age story

Bil Wright's zeal is a little uncanny at first. In a world of beaten-down, businesslike mortals, optimism such as his seems almost too good to be true--that is, until he talks about the values instilled in him by his mother.

"She was very much what I call a `race woman,'" he says. "She was very much about the importance of being a black American. I come from one of those homes where you're told you have to be not just `as good as' but `better than.' She was definitely a fighter for her kids, and whenever she felt that there was inequality, she was there. Absolutely, she was there."

The influence of this devoted fighter is apparent in Wright's demeanor. Eyes sparkling and hands waving to punctuate his words, he seems to brim over with ideas and plans. No wonder he's been able to rack up a list of accomplishments that would exhaust any other 30-something--a master of fine arts degree, stints at service organizations for troubled kids and people with HIV, the directorship of a performing arts program at the Martin Luther King Center for Social Change, and teaching positions in literature and theater. And then, of course, there's the Book.

The Book is Sunday You Learn How to Box (Scribner Paperback Fiction, $12), a captivating, assured first novel that has won advance praise from the likes of E. Lynn Harris, Hilton Als, and Samuel R. Delany. "I was on vacation when Bil's publisher sent me his book," Harris says. "I picked it up on the plane home, and I hated it when the book ended. I just wanted the plane ride to go on and on."

It's a story of a young boy's relationship with his devoted, flawed mother and the stepfather who covertly hates him. It's also a stow of first love and, most of all, of growing up gay at a time--the late '60s--when different sexualities weren't discussed with the fervor they are today.

"I wanted to go back to what I call `a softer time,'" Wright says. "I think in order to make the mysteries of adulthood and sexuality more concrete I needed to place it in a time when information [about sex] wasn't so readily available. I wanted to talk about how frightening sexuality was--even pre-AIDS--for an adolescent on the cusp of sexuality. It has its own fears and its own mysteries."

The same might be said of the family. Wright plumbs this institution's dark depths with particular delicacy. He's clearly well-versed in the paradoxical feelings parental figures can engender. In Jeanette Stamps, the protagonist's ambitious, secretly angry mother, Wright has created a character that's too vivid to be merely fictional. But although he admits his book has some autobiographical elements, he's reserved about possible correlations with real life. Instead, Wright says, he intends for Sunday You Learn How to Box to express universal themes.

"Very often you see warriors like a Jeanette, who is frustrated, who is bitter--but determined to achieve and go beyond," he says. "That kind of woman has existed in literature over a period of time. I mean, you have her in Titus. You have her in The Glass Menagerie, you know, and you have her in Sunday You Learn How to Box. This is a woman who is an attractive, sexual being but also has what our culture sees as a kind of manly strength."

Clearly this strength, if not Jeanette's less-lovable qualities, had its inspiration close, to home. Raised in the Bronx, N.Y., with a strong sense of possibility--for himself and others--Wright has no trouble believing in an individual's power to make things better. That belief, not the hardships faced by the protagonist, forms the core of Sunday You Learn How to Box.

Lehoczky writes regularly for the Chicago Tribune and Newsday.