Paul Polydoris is a queer teenage bartender in a college town in 1993; he can change the shape of his body at will and frequently does, assuming whatever shape and gender that will get him laid (which is depicted quite graphically). After romping his way through various parts of the queer scene, Paul takes on the form of “Polly” and accompanies his friend to a lesbian retreat, where he falls in love with a girl named Diane and eventually follows her to San Francisco. Paul is filled with an intense longing to belong to someone and to give them his whole heart; at the same time; he chafes at being restricted to just one form and one role, restlessly changeable both outside and in. With such a mutable character it’s hard to have any kind of growth arc, and indeed, the lack of any kind of arc was one of the worst things about this story. Without any particular self-reflection on Paul’s part, his endless sexual escapades began to feel like just another part of the character he was performing, each encounter yet another experience he wasn’t learning from. I can’t tell if this book is a love letter to the queer scene of the early 90s, or a condemnation of the fact that the scene seemed to force people into rigid gender roles. Maybe, like the protagonist, the author also wants to have it both ways.