So that's what it means...

The mystery of the title is revealed. And...I'm a little bit surprised/disappointed, I guess. I wasn't exactly expecting some deep secret of the universe to be unraveled, but it just seemed like a throwaway line to me.

Other than that, I found the latter half of the book to be about as enjoyable as the first. The story follows a nice arc, moving from personal recollection, to a wider view of the social problems of the time, and then back to a more individual level. The overall pacing was good, but towards the end I began to get frustrated with the main character's slowness to accept his homosexuality. I know that the whole point was he felt confused and unsure of his sexuality, but it was painful to see him shun his gay friends when they had been supportive and understanding to him. I have to question how much Toland actually changes or matures over the course of the story. For a main character, he seems a little flat, which is probably because he is narrating a story that encompasses far more than his own personal tale.

My complaints about the end of Stuck Rubber Baby are similar to those I had about Blankets. In short, I felt that there was an insufficient amount of closure for many of the characters. In both cases, the story ends with the last chapter flashing ahead to the present, or at least a later time in the main character's life, but without filling in all the details of what happened to the other characters. In Blankets, we never hear about Raina or her family ever again after Craig breaks up with her. I suppose this is more understandable because the story is at least somewhat autobiographical. You don't always get closure in real life. However, in Stuck Rubber Baby, we get very selective information as to the fates of the characters at the end of the novel. We don't know what happens to Riley and Mavis after Toland leaves the Wheelery, we get a throwaway line about Melanie when Toland meets Orley years later, and Ginger and Toland don't stay in touch after she leaves for New York. Hell, we never even find out who the guy that the narrator is ostensibly living with is! Nor why he has that creepy beard. The only characters that really seem to get closure are the ones who die, like Sammy. Even then, we never get the chance to find out whether his family was going to do anything for him.

But I did like the book. For the most part.