A sequel to the author’s critically acclaimed Delphinium title, One of These Things First, The Greta Garbo Home for Wayward Boys and Girls is a poison-pen, love letter to the end of an era—Manhattan during the decadent, late 1970s.
Picking up where he left off at the end of his widely praised debut memoir, One of These Things First, Gaines recounts his hilarious, sometimes poignant attempt to forge a writing career and a successful love life in the gay world of the 1970s. He has limited success until he falls in love with an older woman dying of cancer. Meanwhile, he serendipitously begins a career as a writer when he meets a former child evangelist, and with naïve chutzpah, manages to land a book deal that leads to a whirlwind career as a biographer, rock and roll columnist, and roman à clef novelist who writes a book with a Studio 54 bartender that brings the world down around them. From inside the entertainment business in New York and L.A. to inside the publishing world, Gaines narrates a life of escapades and adventures and searching for love in all the wrong places. After hitting rock bottom, he writes a book about the Beatles that ends up on the New York Times bestseller list, leading to popular esteem and a feeling of momentary redemption.
