Marcus/Marsha, an 18 year old transsexual, can see no other future than street-walking in the footsteps of his prostitute mother when he meets a fantastic bisexual teenager called Gavin. Gavin moves in, becomes the lover of both mother and son/daughter and re-arranges their lives at least temporarily for the maximum convenience of all three. Things can’t last and when Gavin decrees a ban on sex-for-cash all three are caught up in a desperate pursuit of alternate sources of income.
Son of a Whore breaks with current tendencies toward conformism and correctness to renew with the movement of innovation and liberation that characterized American literature in past decades.
Circa l’autore
Iceberg Slim’s 1967 novel Trick Baby introduced the theme of children born to prostitutes as a subject of literature. Son of a Whore takes the question to a different time and class and develops its more comic aspects. Michael Johnson, author of Son of a Whore, is a native of San Francisco’s East Bay. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, he burned his diploma in an act of protest.