One of These Things First: A Memoir

Gaines (Philistines at the Hedgerow) looks back at the central issue of his Jewish childhood in Brooklyn, and the unnerving disorder of feeling different, as he works in his grandmother’s ladies’ clothing store. The author, who was 15 in the early 1960s, places readers right in his Borough Park neighborhood. The family thinks he’s going crazy, possibly due to his unmasculine work, while he tries to explain the sexual chaos in his head. His father takes the youth to a doctor who suggests treatment in a mental hospital, landing Gaines at exclusive Payne Whitney. At the hospital, his doctor approaches his case in the conventional manner to cure his homosexuality, while Gaines witnesses the priceless and zany antics of a supporting cast of oddballs—neighbors and fellow patients—worthy of a Marx Brothers madcap romp. By turns comic, honest, and riveting, Gaines tells a story of a well-meaning shrink and his troubled young charge locked in a war of wills to ease “the trauma of homosexuality” and restore his humanity in a conservative world. [em](Aug.) [/em]