Oh! You Pretty Things

University of Minnesota, 1970

By the time imaginative Arthur Ohashi starts his junior year at the University of Minnesota in 1970, he’s made an art of forging conventionality into armor. That is, until Eve Clark turns his careful world upside down. Beautiful and enigmatic, Eve pours her considerable charisma into fronting a local rock band called The Tarts — and she wants Arthur to play keys for them. As he is absorbed into the band, their parties, and their giddy world of subversive rock ‘n’ roll, Arthur is increasingly drawn to the Tart’s guitarist, James Novak, whose appreciation for underground records and androgyny unlocks long-suppressed desires in him.

As Eve and James strip Arthur’s armor away (and replace it with lush red lipstick), he embarks on a path of self-discovery entirely outside his expectation or experience, tapping into a well of bombshell energy he never knew he had. But when Arthur finds himself caught in the middle of Eve and James’ complicated relationship, he realizes that he can’t continue to contort himself to fit into other people’s expectations. Not if the cost is himself.

Grounded in local LGBTQIA history, Oh! You Pretty Things is a story of self-actualization, love, and rock ‘n’ roll.