A free-flowing memoir backed by a hidden but ever-present algorithm of events that could only come from the divine intervention of the Universe. This story is a testament to how every challenge in our lives has a reason and a purpose of building our character and strength. Marino provides a candor on his thoughts on everything from his personality-shaping sexual experiences to his deepest feelings of love and loss that will hit home for anyone. I will go as far to say I understand myself better as a person after reading this memoir.

REICHEN A. LEHMKUHL
Winner of The Amazing Race 4 & author of “Here's What We'll Say”

Marino's book certainly touches and reminds us all of the tender time in our youth of coming out to ourselves.

MARK SEGAL
Publisher of Philadelphia Gay News

Banker by day, stripper by night. Twenty-one year old Tom Marino invites you to be a voyeur on a year of his life, one of youthful exuberance and mistakes, loves and loves lost. Enjoy a sexy romp through the late eighties from Philadelphia to New York. You will cry, laugh and grow angry along with Tom as the man he loves takes advantage of him. But anyone who has been in love will understand why it happened. Tom holds nothing back nor does he blame anyone but himself for his errors in judgment. Despite his setbacks, he ends in a good place having learned many lessons as a result of his experiences. His honesty makes this a compelling read and perhaps you will avoid his mistakes, or if you don’t, perhaps you will have as much fun making those mistakes as he did. The real lesson is that what we think are mistakes at the time can be stepping stones to a better life.

RICH MERRITT
Author of “Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star” and “Code of Conduct”

In Thomas Marino’s oddly titled memoir, Tomorrow May Be Too Late, one might expect to discover handsome lovers with suspenseful careers and personal secrets dashing to expensive rendezvous at exotic locales and engaging in sizzling, passionate sex.

To a degree, that’s what Marino delivers in this sincere but long winded epic of his ten-month affair at the age of twenty-one with another man—there are provocative and questionable jobs and plenty of personal secrets, lots of showers and hot sex (though the luxurious globe-trotting adventures take place between New Jersey and Philadelphia nightclubs and restaurants circa 1988), and the extravagance comes with a price tag of quibbles over spending too much money.

A more appropriate title for Marino’s exposé of falling in love with the “good-looking bad boy” might have been “Lessons I Learned from that Awful Affair,” and what Marino details is what many gay men have also experienced at some point in their lives: Getting into bed with the wrong guy.

But let’s start at the beginning, which is where Marino starts, when handsome Tom meets handsome Tom: Marino meets Tom Shaw at a New Jersey club. Marino is separating from his wife and inching his way out into accepting his homosexuality and having brief affairs with other guys. He is instantly smitten with his attractive new boyfriend. Within days the two men are inseparable and talking about moving in together.

Marino, a banker by day, is also a part-time stripper on weekends—he strives hard to bring some nobility to this questionable profession in his passages, detailing his work at bachelorette and birthday parties, though his credibility suffers somewhat from his own narcissism and self-indulgence, as he and his acquaintances constantly comment on his attractiveness page after page.

Shaw, too, is apparently a looker, but instead of suffering from Marino’s flaws of youthful innocence, naiveté, and sincerity, he is a drifter and a hustler-in-training, setting up scam after scam and initiating a relationship with Marino, who finds himself financially liable for Shaw’s every compliment.

Money, money, money seems to be at the root of all evils in this hot-sex relationship, though it is clear that Marino is not telling the entire story about Shaw, nor is he sugar-coating his own behavior. As Shaw disappears for free time from the relationship to “go driving” and clear his mind, Marino engages in his own bad behavior, more hot sex with more hot men as well as a dalliance with a female co-worker.

All of this is detailed in diary-like entries with prose that is clean, concise, and minimal, and which makes this a remarkably swift read, given the length of the work. On an emotional scale of one to ten, Marino’s residual burn from Shaw is about a four or five—there have clearly been other nasty affairs recorded that are much more disastrous than this—but I make no bones about professing that this book was an addictive weekend read. I could not put it down once I started; it was like knowing a train crash was imminent and wanting to see who survived and how, particularly as I began to see many elements of my own youthful mistakes in both Tom and Tom’s behavior.

JAMESON CURRIER
Lambda Literary

Tomorrow May Be Too Late satisfies in all the wonderful ways sneaking a read of someone's diary would--voyeuristic, and honest in the extreme. Marino allows the reader to see his twentysomething self without any of the soft-focus editing of memory that can occur in memoir writing: here is a young gay man's journey to discovery.

J. WARREN
Author of “Stealing Ganymede”

Tomorrow May Be Too Late is a story all gay men can relate to. To the ones who have been around it will bring back memories. To twenty-something readers it will seem contemporary.
Tom’s honesty in laying bare his past adventures is a cautionary tale about growing up. As I read, I found myself reassessing past actions and emotions, along with wiping away a tear or two. It’s a wonderful take on the pitfalls and glorious passions flooding through us as we come to terms with our own sexuality.

TERRY OLDES
Author of “Dancing with Tina”

This very frank novel of self-revelation is predicated on the assumption that the reader will be interested in the inner struggle of the author to come fully to grips with his identity as a gay man. This is not an unwarranted assumption. Tomorrow May Be Too Late, by Thomas Marino shows this struggle on his own personal level. Most gay men go through a similarly long process of self-realization. While the process is often a long one, it can vary considerably in it's nature and it is always interesting to compare one's own journey with that of others.

A large part of this process is developing the ability to form healthy, lasting relationships. This is not a set of skills one is born with and Marino takes us through his various learning experiences leading ultimately to stability with the right partner for life. This is certainly a process we can all identify with, each of us having lived through our own versions and many still on the quest.
In the course of this book, one quickly gets to know the author on a very personal level. He is a man who early-on developed skill at keeping his life in clearly separate boxes. A South Jersey resident, he was a banker by day and a stripper by night - working mostly at straight clubs and bachlorette parties. Though the book is un-illustrated, one may assume Mr. Marino was a very good looking man. A certain shallow arrogance is immediately evident as a result of this. We have all met this type in clubs far too often and we might find a certain small-minded pleasure in the fact that his good looks seem to bring him more trouble than happiness. Struggling with a gay relationship while at the same time dating a girl from work is a prescription for misery that one would think anyone less blinded by his own reflection in the mirror could see well in advance of the inevitable trouble. But then - we've all done stupid things when it comes to sex and relationships, haven't we?
This book, written in a sort of diary format, gives the reader ample opportunity to compare his own mistakes with the author's and many will identify closely with them. Hopefully the reader will also have found a path to stability and maturity, as has the author. If not, Tomorrow May Be Too Late may help along the way.

TOBY GRACE
“Out in Jersey.Net”

In 1988, Tom Marino is 21 years old. Having just ended a straight relationship that was headed toward marriage, he begins to embrace his homosexuality, which has always been with him—as his ex-fiancée knows, he’s no stranger to gay encounters.

What else is there to say about young Marino? In addition to his administrative job at a bank, he works as a stripper. And he is very, very taken with himself. No, really, he could give lessons to Narcissus in self-adoration. And in case the reader should forget, Marino mentions on virtually every page how hot he is, how much he enjoys looking at himself, and how lucky we all are that we can look at him, too.

The young Marino can’t change clothes without pointing out how smashing he looks in whatever he’s wearing; can’t pass a mirror without stopping for a let-me-admire-myself moment. In short, if you already suspect that great-looking guys with chiseled bodies tend to be shallow and self-absorbed, there’s nothing in this story that will change your mind.

The book’s main concern is Marino’s relationship with a man, also named Tom, whom he meets at a club. Instantly falling in love with each other’s looks, they fall into bed and then into a relationship. I use the word “fall” advisedly, for the affair is a plunge toward disaster from the very start. I’m giving nothing away by saying that Tom is a sociopath who is just out to get all he can get from Marino. (One of the first things Tom does is to get Marino to hand over all of his credit cards. Hello!)

Anyone who has been in a train wreck of a relationship will identify with Marino, who realizes he’s in trouble but can’t do anything about it because he is so deeply in love. And in case you’re wondering, the answer is yes: when two perfect-looking guys have sex, it’s just perfect. If this book was a novel, you might put it down early on and never pick it up again. But the fact that it’s a memoir changes everything. Marino is nothing if not honest, and there’s something compelling about the way he leaves nothing out when it comes to his own past behavior. I’m talking binge drinking at every opportunity, cheating on Tom with other menand a woman, and masturbating while driving. That last behavior disturbed me deeply because, let’s face it, New Jersey drivers are bad enough when they have no distractions at all.

Speaking of Jersey, yes, this is what you get—a story played out in exurbs and suburbs, among strip malls, greasy spoons, and cul-de-sacs. It’s fitting that this story of shallow people takes place in such shallow waters. And yet, and yet—I recommend this book. Its saving grace is this: it’s compulsively readable. You know already that the story can’t end well, but you keep turning the pages for the same reason that bystanders keep looking at an accident: watching a tragedy in progress is so damn fascinating.

So by all means, take Tomorrow May Be Too Late to the beach this summer. Reading about perfect guys having perfect sex isn’t all bad, especially when you’re half comatose from lying in the sun. You can skip the superfluous Epilogue, in which Marino tries to put the best face on things by saying that his 10 months with Tom was the happiest time of his life. Unfortunately—and this makes the book a very guilty pleasure indeed—it’s the unhappiness that keeps us riveted to the page.

WAYNE COURTOIS
Out in Print