The Man in the Grey Flannel Skirt

Jon-Jon Goulian is a very complex man. He was blessed with a privileged and liberal upbringing - his father a doctor, his mother a lawyer and his grandfather the renowned pragmatic philosopher Sidney Hook. For five years he worked as an assistant to Robert Silvers, the much-loved and redoubtable editor of The New York Review of Books. He also has a law degree he has hardly used and then there's the fact that he wears skirts, nail polish and surrounds himself with an army of stuffed toys for succour. Jon-Jon has spent his late teens, twenties and thirties somewhat adrift - in and out of employment and generally confusing all those who met him. THE MAN IN THE GRAY FLANNEL SKIRT is a riveting account of a very intelligent man growing up left of centre, trying to work out who he is and where he fits, both personally and privately.