Title: The Best Little Boy in the World Grows Up Author: Andrew Tobias (no longer known as John Reid) Published by: Random House, 1998 ISBN: 0-375-50111-8 [hardcover, 268 pages]
Twenty-five years ago, the bestselling financial writer Andrew Tobias wrote a classic coming-of-age memoir called The Best Little Boy in the World. He had to write it under a pseudonym, John Reid, because the book was about a cultural taboo -- homosexuality -- and Tobias was not ready to discuss the subject even with his parents. That book has entertained and educated over a million readers and has never gone out of print. Now Tobias has returned to tell the next part of his personal story, and the story of a civil rights movement, in this witty and affirming memoir, The Best Little Boy in the World Grows Up.America has come a long way since the early seventies and so has Andrew Tobias. What hasn't changed is this author's sense of humor and his gift for telling stories. Here, the tales range from the personal (accounts of heartbreak and love) to the political (coming out to the president of the United States and a crowd of eight hundred others at a time when it was less fashionable to be out than it is now).
Tobias describes the distance traveled from infatuation to love, from adventure to commitment, from confusion to self-awareness. The result is a heartfelt and frequently hilarious coming-of-middle-age store, told with candor, charm, and the kind of wisdom that can only come from the experience of having grown up in exciting times and a changing world. "This book is the story of that change, at least from my small window on it," Tobias writes, "and a thank-you note to those -- very possibly including you -- who through their goodwill and open minds have helped change it."
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