Edmund White. 
 
Dutton: 1982. First edition. Hardcover in a jacket. Octavo. Slight chipping and fading and small stains on the corners of the jacket. Slight bumping on the crown of the spine and the top edges of the boards. Small water stain on the bottom edge and a tiny stain on the fore edge. Spine ever so slightly leaning. 218 pages. Very good. 
 
A young man's realization of his homosexuality intertwined with the universal leave-taking of childhood. The incredible vulnerability White gives his protagonist's consciousness opens him to a number of sad, funny, and mutable encounters. Hypocritical priests, grotesque psychoanalysts, eccentric and venomous parents, sexually aggressive professors, and bohemian booksellers - here are the models and monsters of adulthood caught by White's loving, honest eye. 
 
"How thrilling to discover one had depths, how consoling to find them less polluted than the shallows."