Private Worlds - Growing Up Gay in Post-War Britain by Jeremy Seabrook

'Wonderful... For anyone who has ever dreamt of leaving a small-town childhood behind them, this is going to wring your heart.  It certainly did mine'.  Neil Bartlett
 
'All profound relationships have the quality of being a folie a deux; an intimate departure from reality, an imaginative creation of a world apart; perhaps this is a way of calling forth meaning - the merging of senseless subjectivities.' In 1950s suburban England, a friendship bloomed between Jeremy Seabrook and Michael O'Neill - both gay men coming of age during a time when homosexuality was still a crime. Their relationship was inflected by secrecy and fear; the shadows that had distorted their adolescent years were never wholly dispelled, long into their adult life.
 
Lyrical, candid and poignant, this is a tale of sexual identity, working-class history and family drama.