(Erstwhile Press, 1979)
This book is pretty much entirely devoted to John Valentine's sexual encounters with teenage boys (the youngest is 12). His sexual obsession with boys began while he was in high school, when he slept with many of his friends and often fooled around with them. He can't seem to grow out of this phase and continues seducing and molesting boys well into his adulthood (mostly in Los Angeles). He justifies his illegal behavior by telling himself (and the reader) that he only seduces boys who are willing or come on to him, and this rational seem to save him from any moral doubt or guilt.
Given the controversial and disturbing focus of this book, it's surprising to report that, for the most part, it is charming. Valentine's lack of guilt or worry makes him a very affable and (almost) sympathetic narrator. He describes all the boys he meets with a sympathetic complexity; they don't appear to be victims or or sexual objects, but quite charming and appealing boys who are happy to engage in sexual relations with an older man.
Valentine worked on fringe and countercultural newspapers and always seems to be living in wretched conditions, but he seems not to mind his squalid existence in the least. He's a good writer, and a generous one; there's a poignancy to many of these portraits, especially those of his high school friends, most of whom were killed in the Korean War.