A disturbing and vervy story about a teenage boy and the hatred he develops for a sailor his mother becomes entangled with. Dark and vicious, it's more potent fare than the self-censorious neuroticism of the closeted homo (Confessions) or the imagined strainings of feminine frustration (TFL). I liked the tone of tragedy that seemed to run throughout the story (the loneliness of adolescence, the fragility of domestic bliss, the surrender of a lifelong dream), which served to make the ending seem all the more destined.