Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2584719 in Books
• Published on: 1972-03
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Sydney finds himself in a quandary when the girl he loves and his mother, a lesbian, develop crushes on each other. "Meaker has written a very funny novel about our current preoccupation with sex and what it is doing to us," remarked PW.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
Marijane Meaker has written many young adult novels under the pseudonym of M.E. Kerr. She lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Lesbian Literature??
I was 23 when I read this book in 1972. It has always stuck with me. In 1972 I didn't know that this was lesbian literature. Yes, the mom is a lesbian, but, for me, the focus was on Shockproof, how he thought and felt. What astonished me then, was how a woman writer was able to so accurately describe the psyche of a 17 year old boy with whom I could so closely relate; that she could see into ME.
It seems that Shockproof Sydney Skate is likely to be made into a movie; that Cameron Crowe is the screenwriter. Perhaps, but likely not, the movie will speak to me as this wonderful book did.

autobiographical?
I liked all the references to early 1970's New York but I was a little confused about what the focus was supposed to be. I never figured out who Sydney was, there wasn't enough character development. I guess the real focus was supposed to be the mother, the author probably wanted the book to revolve around the mother but in 1972 I guess the world wasn't ready for that. A good afternoon read.

highly enjoyable!
This is a rare gem about a lesbian mother and her teenage son without the earnest eagarness of the "Heather Has Two Mommies" genre. The son is funny and sarcastic and has weird sexual experiences of his own; indeed some of the scenes involving his various girlfriends are a little bizarre. But they're fun, and it's real. Though no one wears bellbottoms anymore or says things like super-fabulous, this novel is still very relevant.