Common Sons is the story of Joel Reece, a farm kid who finds himself feeling an unfamiliar affinity for his best friend Tom Allen, who is a new kind in the small town of Common New Mexico. Although they have been friends for almost a year and to the exclusion of Joel's old classmates from the country school he attended. With Tom quickly becoming his best friend, Joel spends most of his time with Tom, trading high school adventures with his friend as well as having him sleep over at his house on the farm. Until one night, at a country/western dance during the county fair at the old WWII hangars, they end up getting drunk, and Tom ends up seducing Joel.

But the next morning, when Joel is excited about talking things over with Tom and attempts to visit him at Tom's church, where he is cleaning the chapel, Joel finds that his best friend is an emotional mess and tells Joel to leave that he can't handle seeing him, not after the night before.

And so begins Joel's awakening to what he learns is a natural affection for him, something that he did not know existed within him. Although he is beset by the shock and shunning of his old classmates, and even Tom himself, Joel begins a journey that will eventually lead him to a place he could never have imagined.