Not Like Other Boys Growing Up Gay: A Mother and Son Look Back - Hardcover

Shyer, Marlene; Shyer, Christopher

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0395709393 ISBN 13: 9780395709399

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin, 1996

Synopsis

A mother and son share their individual perspectives on coming to terms with homosexuality, discussing the journey from emotional isolation, pain, shame, and fear to acceptance and love

About this title

About the Author:

Marlene Fanta Shyer, www.marleneshyer.com, has published fifteen books, over a hundred short stories, a play and many travel articles. She divides her time between New York City and Westchester. After receiving an MBA from Columbia University, Christopher Shyer worked as a marketing professional and is currently president of his familys eyewear company. He recently moved to New York City.

From Booklist:

The Shyers, mother and son, very successfully use a rarely successful technique--telling a single story in chapters alternating their respective viewpoints but following the same chronology. As they take turns telling of Chris' maturation from repressed homosexual childhood to self-accepting gay manhood, we not only hear their words, but, more important, empathize with both of them. Chris is his parents' middle son, and as early as age five his mother suspected and predicted his homosexuality. She and Chris' father took him to psychologists and otherwise did everything they could to raise a heterosexual child. Meanwhile, Chris, like many other gay children, was harassed at school and miserable during most of his childhood and adolescence. Marlene's side of the story is particularly compelling, for Chris' father denied there was anything unusual about their son and even now, while she accepts Chris' gayness, only tolerates his son's sexual identity. Not just another story of what it is like to grow up gay, this book reveals what being gay is like for both the gay person and fellow family members. Charles Harmon

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0395709393
• ISBN 13: 9780395709399
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 259