I read, reread, studied, and outlined your novella on Quona the cross-dresser [May 20], searching in vain for the article’s message. It was like looking for something likable in John Starks’s “just-fouled-out” mug.
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If the intended message was: here was a kid who had courage despite being “marginalized” and crammed into confining cultural subcategories, I think you kicked the traditional notion of “courage” in the teeth.
Perhaps Quona could attribute his decision-making ability to his mother. Here’s a gal who has three children, and when her youngest child proves himself to be the paradigmatic problem student, she moves in with a gentleman who calls Quona “bitch” and “fag.” Quona is then faced with a two-hour ride to school, he bottoms out, and his mother decides to stay with her boyfriend over moving with Quona. Hmm. Now there’s a story!
