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From: motss@bbncca.ARPA (Forwarded anonymous posting)
Newsgroups: mod.motss
Subject: info on novel requested
Message-ID: <1067@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 24-Oct-84 15:00:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: bbncca.1067
Posted: Wed Oct 24 15:00:43 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Oct-84 00:38:14 EDT
Lines: 23
Approved: sdyer@bbncca.ARPA

Several years ago (3-5) I read a novel of which I totally forgot both
the title and the name of the author.  Can you help?  Here are a couple
of things I do remember:  it was ~ 300-page long, published in paperback
form.  Its most strinking feature is that it is interspersed with poems
a-la-Dr. Seuss (and I wonder if ...), about a fantastic little character
called Rumpelsticken (?), whose ups and downs parallel the hero's
sexual ups and downs.

 	The hero, a young gay man, befriends (in the second half) the
son of one of his women friends;  that kid, absolutely neglected by his
mother, is, at the beginning, very closed and untalkative, and opens up
gradually while listening to these poems which the hero makes up as they
walk.  At some point he also befriends a blind child, son of a lover
of his (who is a physician, I think).

	Another character appearing in this book is an Irishman whom
the hero met in a bar and whose fantasy is to be killed (literally) by
the hero, who, at the last moment, refuses to do so.

	The cover said that the author (whose name here is obviously
a pseudonym) was `a well-known author of children books'.

	Rings a bell?  If so, please help...