With a New Afterword
“This account of a Roman Catholic boyhood interrupted—and derailed—retains a luminous, novelistic complexity that sets it apart from similar tales of stolen childhoods.” (Ben Brantley, New York Times)
Between the ages of twelve and fifteen, Martin Moran had a sexual relationship with an older man, a counselor he’d met at a Catholic boys’ camp. Almost thirty years later, at the age of forty-two, he set out to find and face his abuser. The Tricky Part tells the story of this relationship and its complex effect on the man Moran became. Told with startling candor and disarming humor, The Tricky Part carries us to the heart of a paradox: that what we think of as damage may be the very thing that gives rise to transformation, even grace.
“Marvelous, courageous, and, above all, thoughtful.”
—The Washington Post
“A subtly rendered and remarkably even-handed journey toward redemption.”
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“A beautiful book...Fully human, unsettling, and wise.”
—Tony Kushner
“[One of] the best LGBT books of all time...A haunting memoir of abuse and redemption.”
—Benoit Denizet-Lewis, The Good Men Project
“Martin Moran not only writes unflinchingly about the sexual abuse of a child; he expands it into a meditation on suffering, despair, forgiveness, redemption, and the mysterious workings of grace. He elevates the confessional to the level of art.”
—Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours
Prelude
BOOK I
Falling
BOOK II
Waking
Afterword
Acknowledgments