The novel is perhaps the first serious fiction that tackles homosexuality in America without a trace of pornography or being judgemental towards the behaviour. Vidal has not just written a story of a young man coming to terms with his sexuality, but instead has written a tale of idealized love that desperately wants the bliss of innocence to carry over into adulthood.
The novel revolves around Jim Willard, a young man who shares a night of innocent passion with Bob Ford – his friend, his senior and his only love. After Bob leaves the town to join merchant marines, Jim’s only aim is to accompany Ford and to this end, he leaves his hometown in search of Ford. As Jim pursues his first love, in awe of the same masculinity he possesses himself, he develops relationships with various characters - the movie star Ronald Shaw, the tortured writer Paul Sullivan and the bohemian Maria Verlaine - and all these relationships are measured against the innocent, unnamed affection with Bob Ford. The relationship with other fail in comparison with the passion he shared with Bob. Learning that Bob Ford has returned to his hometown and has married a girl, Jim hopes that he could recreate the magic of the adolescent love that they shared. He returns to his hometown to meet Bob. The two of them meet in New York and after a night of drinking end up back at Bob's hotel room, where Bob shuns his advances. It is at this point that Jim’s notions regarding the idyllic relationship breaks and he realises that he was chasing a mirage. In a final act of violence, Jim rapes Bob to complete the cycle that altered his life. Despite his final act of raping Bob Ford, the reader also tends to feel sympathetic to the protagonist, as his search for the perfect love and his single-minded affection to Bob is shattered in the last moment of rejection - which was a rejection of not just dreams and his love but also his sexuality. Vidal has made Jim a sympathetic character by the slowness with which he comes to act on the feelings that he has had from the time of his junior year.
Vidal, in the novel, deals with homosexuality not as a cultural identification or a locus of institution-building, but more as an description of same-sex desire as actually practiced. It is interesting to note that most critics have always regarded the novel as being unapologetic about homosexuality to the extent that it shows two young men having a relationship without feeling guilty about it. In the ensuing debate about gay rights and morality issues tagged to the behaviour, Vidal seems to have intuited that when it comes to homosexuality, the real struggle lies, not only in the realm of national politics but in the psyche of men. It also brings to the forefront the aspect of naming or labelling such behaviour. Throughout the novel Jim, neither accepts being gay nor does he project his sexuality as being separate from the rest. The problem the novel explores is, in a way, one of classification: If you are a man sexually attracted to other men, must you therefore label and understand yourself as queer or gay?
The novel is relevant because no matter how complete the victories in gay rights become, each young man or woman is still confronted with the dilemma of whether to adopt the presumptive association between act and identity and describe themselves as gay. The novel also becomes relevant as it reflects on today’s social conservatives, who tacitly allow private homosexual relationships as long as people do not mention or discuss publicly. There is no conscious effort by Vidal to turn this novel into a social concern, but the book inevitably turns into gay rights issue with its very subtle treatment of the behaviour.
As a reader, the novel cannot be considered a prose masterpiece, but it is a reasonably deft piece of postwar realism and a breakthrough attempt in 1940s to depict homosexuality in its true light.
