I don't think Michael Cunningham needs to deny the existence of this as much as he thinks he does. It's not a bad book. It's not great, but it's pretty obviously a first book by someone who shows a lot of promise.

There are several things going on here, but there are a lot of dropped threads. On the one hand, this can be chalked up to the limited perspective--we're seeing everything through 12-year-old David's eyes--but it ends up feeling like there were more things Cunningham had planned to do and wandered away from. His later books show off his strength--fully-developed ensemble casts--that is lacking here; seeing each family member's drama through their individual perspectives would have helped this feel less haphazard.

The flyleaf description gives away nearly the whole plot, though it implies certain events are of greater consequence than they truly are. Silver lining: at least there were still some (minor) surprises for me by the end of the book, and nobody becomes a caricature of what they could be. ( )

It's not that the book was really that bad, it's just that this book doesn't even remotely resemble the Michael Cunningham I know, the Michael Cunningham who wrote The Hours. No wonder he doesn't acknowledge it. ( )

12-year-old David gets picked up by Warren when he is hitchhiking. Warren invites him home and kisses him thinking he is a boy prostitute, but stops as soon as he realises he isn't. ( )