Young, intelligent, and handsome, Alan Helms left a brutal midwestern childhood for New York City in 1955. Denied a Rhodes scholarship because of his sexual orientation, he soon became an object of desire in a gay underground scene frequented by, among many others, Noel Coward, Leonard Bernstein, and Marlene Dietrich. In this unusually vivid and sensitive account, Helms describes the business of being a sex object and its psychological and physical toll.

"Riveting."- New York Times Book Review

"Extraordinary and elegantly written. A record of a gay world that has virtually disappeared over the past twenty-five years of liberation and fifteen years of AIDS." -Boston Globe

"A beautifully written memoir. Helms sped through the celebrity-packed fast lanes, but he has learned how to stand back and get some perspective." -Los Angeles Times

"Sublimely funny, engaging, pathetic, highly literary, and painful to read. Helms seems like a gay Everyman whose quest for self-knowledge, respect, and contentment in this contemptuous world mirrors that of many other marginalized people." -Bloomsbury Review

Alan Helms is professor of literature at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.