THE DIVIDED PATH

Without the psychological depth or seriousness of Gore Vidal's The City and The Pillar, this explores the tabooed, twilight world of the homosexual in explicit detail and for the vicarious, provides a fairly sensational, sexological account. This follows Michael from his childhood, and the mother who tried to make a girl of him, to his first year away from home and the distasteful if persistent pursuit of a woman twice his age. Then the meeting with Paul, and Michael's carefully concealed affection for him when he realizes that Paul is normal; the torment as he watches Paul take on one girl after another, including Elinor- the one who might have salvaged Michael. New York, and the participation in a coterie of young men who are also ""gay"", the particular mannerisms of the faggot world, but never the desired escape from the image of Paul until his death... An overt rather than fastidious treatment of this theme- this is for the sensation-seeker.