"God created sex," said Mitch. "Man created TV, war, white-collar crime, movies, education, business, law, sports, art, cooking, politics, soap operas, and various other sundry activities to distract us, and it works-ten percent of the time. We still think about sex ninety percent of the time, even when we're supposedly doing something else."
"Don't blame God," said Isabella.
"Don't tell me you're not a ninety percenter, sweetie. That would make you a bad liar."
Tales Of The Tinkertoy tells it like it was. It's a
Bildungsroman set in its own time-the 1960s-the sexual revolution. If nothing else, it serves as a historical reference, allowing readers to compare the present to the not-so-long-ago past and to appreciate the ways we've progressed and the ways we haven't.
When 15-year-old Gus Mazur leaves his Oklahoma birthplace to live with his aunt and uncle in New York City, he narrowly escapes the blame for getting a girl "in trouble." In the Big Apple, a whole new life opens for Gus-from boarding school to university to Marine Corps duty in Paris to a career at the WBN television network.
It's the dawn of civil rights struggles; WBN needs reporters with insider access to events off limits to their white counterparts, which helps Gus, as the network's only non-white producer, be promoted to executive producer by the age of 30.
Nevertheless, he chafes when he's required to run stories that hide the truth from the American people. But the money is good and there aren't that many opportunities for "someone like him."
Outside of work, Gus tries everything short of a sex change in a frantic search for a soulmate, deluding himself that wanton sex will compensate for the compromises he has to make. One woman is determined to set him straight. She gets her chance after Gus is waylaid in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic Convention, helping him piece his life back together.
