By the bestselling and celebrated Gore Vidal, a novel about a brilliant and precocious schoolboy whose parents separate when he is young, and whose mother is portrayed as a 'monster' A novel based on the emotional conflict centered around a son's urge to sever the psychological umbilical cord which ties him to a selfish and possessive mother. Completely unsympathetic to his young experiences and inclinations, forever critical of his interests and reactions, she nevertheless appeals to his sympathies and attempts to hold him emotionally.