What Is Dave Cullen's New Book 'Don't Fall in Love' About?
Dave Cullen's next book, Don't Fall in Love: The Secret Lives of Two Gay Soldiers Hiding in Plain Sight, is a work of narrative nonfiction about two gay service members who built a life together while the U.S. military officially forbade them from serving openly. It is scheduled for publication on May 4, 2027. The "27 years in the making" framing refers to how long Cullen has been reporting on and around this story — it is not a claim that he wrote continuously for nearly three decades, but that the material has been gathered, revisited, and shaped across that span.
What the book is actually about
At its center are two men in uniform who were, in the book's phrasing, "hiding in plain sight." That phrase captures the specific pressure of the era: they were not invisible, but they had to manage what colleagues, commanders, and paperwork could see. The book follows their relationship as a secret kept inside an institution that could end their careers for acknowledging it.
The title is doing real work here. "Don't fall in love" reads as both an institutional warning and an ironic one — the kind of advice that is impossible to follow and dangerous to ignore. Expect the book to sit in the same narrative nonfiction space as Cullen's earlier work: deeply reported, scene-driven, and built around people rather than policy abstractions.
Why "27 years" matters for how you read it
A long reporting timeline usually means a few concrete things:
- Access built over time. Sources who will not talk in year two often will in year fifteen.
- Documents that surface late. Records get declassified, released through requests, or handed over by families.
- Hindsight. Events that were ambiguous when they happened can be understood differently once their consequences are known.
It does not automatically mean the book is more accurate than a shorter project. It means the reporting had more chances to be tested. When the book arrives, the useful question is not "was it worth 27 years?" but "what does the long view let Cullen show that a faster book could not?"
The historical backdrop: Don't Ask, Don't Tell
To follow the book, you need the policy context. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) was the U.S. policy in effect from 1994 to 2011. Under it, gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members could serve only if they kept their orientation secret. Disclosing it — or being outed — could lead to discharge.
Key points to keep straight:
| Period | Policy situation |
|---|---|
| Before 1994 | Openly gay service was grounds for exclusion under earlier regulations |
| 1994–2011 | DADT: serve in silence, or risk discharge |
| 2011 | DADT repealed; open service permitted |
| Later policy changes | Separate debates and rules followed regarding transgender service members |
The book's subjects lived in the middle row of that table. That is the world the title is describing.
How it connects to Columbine and Parkland
Cullen is best known for Columbine, his account of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, and for Parkland, about the 2018 shooting and the student-led activism that followed. Readers often assume a new Cullen book will resemble those. The honest answer is: related in method, different in subject.
What carries over:
- Long-form investigative reporting
- A focus on individuals inside a larger system
- Interest in how institutions fail or constrain the people within them
What does not carry over:
- The subject matter is not a mass shooting
- The central tension is secrecy and military policy, not a single day of violence
If you are coming to Cullen through the true-crime lens, this book is better understood as a story about concealment, love, and institutional power. The connection is the reporting approach, not the topic.
What to expect, and what not to assume
Reasonable expectations:
- Narrative nonfiction built on interviews and documents
- A dual portrait of two service members
- Substantial treatment of the DADT era and its human costs
Do not assume:
- Specific page counts, print runs, or bestseller status
- Reviews or blurbs that have not been published
- That the book covers transgender military service in depth — that is a related but distinct subject, and Cullen's listed focus is gay soldiers and spouses
How to follow the book's release
The reliable path is Cullen's own site, davecullen.com, which is where official updates and purchase information appear. His Columbine page is at davecullen.com/buy-columbine if you want to see how he presents his earlier work. For the new book, check the site closer to the May 4, 2027 date rather than relying on secondhand summaries, since details like final subtitle, cover, and format can change before publication.
A short reading plan while you wait
- Read Columbine first if you have not. It shows you Cullen's reporting method at full length.
- Learn the DADT basics — the timeline above is enough to start; the policy's legislative history is well documented.
- Read first-person accounts from gay service members who served during the DADT years. These give you the texture that policy summaries leave out.
- Watch Cullen's site for confirmed details as 2027 approaches.
The core answer to the question in the title: Don't Fall in Love is about two gay soldiers who loved each other while the military required them to pretend they did not — and Cullen spent a very long time getting their story right.