Shockproof Sydney Skate — Marijane Meaker

Sydney Skate has dubbed himself "Shockproof": He decoded his mother's gossip with her glamorous lesbian girlfriends at age eight (but has never let on to her that he knows she's gay). He easily shrugs off his father's demands to skip college and join him in the exciting world of swimming pool sales for suburbanites. During his summer days, he deftly cares for snakes at the local pet shop. And he has memorized the sex scenes of every book he's ever read in order to better seduce women. Nothing, however, has prepared Sydney for his mother sweeping Alison Gray, the girl of his dreams, off her feet.

Witty and perceptive, Sydney's coming-of-age story has been a classic of lesbian literature since it was first published in 1973. It was a Literary Guild Alternate and a Book Find Club Selection. Hailed as the Catcher in the Rye for the seventies, Shockproof Sydney Skate exposes the confusion of its time and remains keenly relevant to the sexual absurdities of today.