The naked heart

J. Weldon

Set among the folkways of poor white Alabama trash, this is a story "rich in local color (with lotsa junked washing machines and cars up on blocks in front yards). It is a disarmingly honest revelation of the troubled mind of a Southern boy. I'll say it was troubled all right. Tormented by incestual urges, decades of inbreeding, and the bad luck to be Gay in the wrong place and time, the poor kid crucifies himself on a home made cross out back behind the pigsty. Nice swimming hole group masturbation scene, however.