A boy has his first serious encounter with desire, betrayal, and bigotry with his uncle’s enticing friend.
This reads a bit differently today, I suspect, than it did in the late ’70s and early ’80s. On the one hand, the narrator’s feelings about Donald are genuine, and in adolescent fashion a mysterious tangle of the chaste and the erotic. On the other hand, though, Donald is pretty clearly grooming a young teenager for sex. That the narrator’s family can’t bring themselves to be honest about their suspicions, and that the story appears to take place before homosexuality was decriminalized in Great Britain, adds to the undercurrent of guilt and fear.