New York, Spring, 1956. A nightclub singer meets by change a teenage boy, and befriends him. Little by little Marian Aspen and Zimzam Taylor reveal themselves to each other. She tells him about growing up in Australia, performing in Paris, the men she has loved. He talks about his family and the disaster which befell them. But even when their affair is at its most electrifying and intense, some secrets cannot be told. The Boy is a remarkable book, a novel of great erotic power, frank, tender, sensuous and with an irresistible logic of revelation and betrayal.