This is a skillfully written account of a young man becoming sexually obsessed with another young man after one night of erotic love making. David Plante is very wise to spin a tale where one night of sexual joy can lead anyone into the wild world of speculation about the barely known lover and the pain of longing and obsession for someone we really do not know. Plante explores the components of sexual obsession which may include project onto the lover a range of concepts that are beyond reality. Yet in some ways the book is more hopeful and optimistic than most of Plante's novels in that eventually obsession fades, becomes less intense, is less painful, and finally disappears as sanity is regained. When I read Hollingshurst's The Folking Star, I was reminded of Plante's The Catholic. Both deal with sexual obsession and the way the mind eventually forgets the love object, which leads to the healing.

A book/story should have a beginning, a middle and an end; this book/story didn't seem to have any. Here's the run down. Daniel picks up a trick, Henry. Daniel is totally out of touch with reality and imagines, yes imagines, that he is in love with Henry. Daniel is friends with a married couple, Charlie and Roberta. He used to me roomies with Charlie in college, and I think they got drunk and messed around once, the the story really doesn't expand on it and is determined to keep it a secret. Yeah it's a secret of what happened, but you don't keep it a secret from the reader, otherwise what's the point in bringing it up. I think the guy was totally high when he wrote this book, because it almost comes across as just sporadic random thoughts that ramble from one extreme to another without any point. I think the author was trying for some kind of poetic poise, but it just doesn't work. I guess we are seeing a world totally through Daniels eyes where you don't really get the entire story, and Daniel is this messed in the head queer. At times I thought maybe Daniel was supposed to be mentally challeged (I'm being politically correct, what I want to say is retarded.) The copyright was 1985, but I think this story laid at the bottom of some pile of stories for years before it was published, because it is just too tame and bland to have been written during the eighties.