Preview of Baby Be-Bop Summary:

In Baby Be-Bop, sixteen-year-old Dirk McDonald details his difficulties in coming to terms with his homosexuality. Readers first meet Dirk in the novel Weetzie Bat, when he and his lover, Duck, become central cogs in Weetzie's eccentric and loving extended family. In Baby Be-Bop, Block goes back to explore Dirk's childhood and early adolescence before he meets both Weetzie and Duck. As the novel opens, Dirk's idyllic childhood, which he spends living with his grandmother Fifi, ends when he enters adolescence and recognizes homosexual feelings. As Dirk realizes that his fantasies contrast with those of his heterosexual peers, he finds it difficult to voice his desires even to those he loves.

When Dirk is painfully rebuffed by his first lover, he changes his appearance and joins the punk scene where he encounters rough violence and hatred. Unlike Weetzie Bat, where homosexual themes are significant but subdued, in Baby...