I'll bet Moran, an actor, is a one-book man, this is it, no more books from him. But that is a compliment, this book is literature for the aesthetic, it is life for the living, in this he did it, no more writing needed, he has taken the gross crude (and yet exuberant) event of maladroit sexual awakening, a twelve-year-old molested by his camp counselor, truly sour grapes and acid lees and sharp stems, and has skillfully vintaged them into yes literature for our enjoyment but also report for our learning, truly a wine whose aroma and bouquet effectively shares us the experience and its meaning, that is literature. Moran need not write another book, this is his 30-year processing of the experience in the cask of memory so that it is finished and thankfully he freed with it. He has not lived in vain.

Best condemnation of adult-child sex I've ever come across, because sure Catholic guilt guilt guilt (plus sociocultural homophobia) was there to cause trouble, but the boy was gay and exploded gladly into his selfhood via this, but apparently there is something innately, intrinsically, inherently biopsychologically wrong, indeed unworkable, about adult-child sex here even though exactly half of the lad wished willed and needed it. (Oh, it also suggests that "sexual orientation" is more than emissions, touches ones total self and aliveness. But not via seduction via neediness, please!)

It's literature because it re-creates in me (who fortunately never had it) the experience and its meaning. And such ambivalence: he wants it, he needs it, he likes it-he fears it, he is ashamed of it. He submits passively, then once he actively responds, a Little League "pitcher" to be crude about it. But then he rebels from it and holds out. And returns to it...

And for those who like "showing not telling," be prepared to enjoy a dozen scenes where the text is a cubist painting, the broken parts ready to form up as we read them. As E. B. White said the poet "unzips the veil from beauty but does not remove it." Mallarme criticized those writers who are too explicit and "deprive the mind from the pleasure of creating." Willa Cather enjoyed understatement, the message sensed by the ear but not heard by it. One finds these qualities of suave understatement and overtones here. When the boy tries to ask his father a question, we know what question , but he can't. Where Kip the other violated boy communicates with him-but via a nuance. And so forth.

This is in the 10% or less of the year's books which deserve to be kept because they keep.

Every man that has experienced sexual or emotional abuse needs to read this book. Every man and woman that is in a relationship with a man that has been abused needs to read this book. Every family member and friend of a man who has been abused needs to read this book.

Martin Moran has great courage and great talent. He has expressed the journey of an injured soul on its path towards healing with profound clarity, sometimes humorous, at times heartbreaking and at other times sensual.