Larry: the Creation and Destruction of a Child Molester

Larry: The Creation and Destruction of a Child Molester is the telling of two life stories; one of a mother, frightened, vindictive and controlling and the other of the son she raises, molding him in her own disturbed view of what a "real man" should be. So complete is her domination and so disinterested is her husband, that Larry becomes the classic overwhelmed pedophile--cunning, tyrannical, lonely and afraid. Larry's quest to become the "man" his mother expects him to be propels him on from the abuses of his siblings to failed attempts at normal relationships with women, to burglary, soldiering, homosexuality and rape. Throughout his life, Larry finds that sexual perversion gives him the only sexual arousal that he knows; sadly, it also gives him the only "loving" physical contact that he craves.

Eleanora, the mother, is herself the victim of an abusive childhood, an unlucky marriage, tortuous childbirths and bitter adulthood. She is a woman at once pitiful and disgusting, sickening and sad. It is her inner turmoil that drives her to force the family's move to a new house, a pivotal even in the story as it thrusts her back into the workplace and lands Larry in the role of caretaker for his younger brothers and sisters.

The story of Eleanora and Larry is told via convergent story lines. The first part of each chapter focuses on Eleanora and the frightening events of her early life. The second part of each chapter shows a parallel event in the life of Larry or his siblings. As Larry reaches adulthood and his perversions escalate, the story catapults toward the climatic event of the book. As Larry sees his sister Jackie marry (and knows he will never again be able to see and stroke her naked body) he makes plans to marry a woman he barely knows, only because she has a young daughter who can become his new victim.

When Jackie discovers Larry's plan, she knows he must be stopped even at the risk of her own life. She is joined in the fight by her new husband and ultimately, even Eleanora, the mother in a terrifying struggle to bring Larry's perversity and violence to an end.