Hardcover. 1st edition hardcover with dustjacket 1989 Poseidon. Very clean in and out except tiny letter 'a' written inside back cover. Light edge-crumpling to jacket. Pages bright; binding tight. 140 pages. Language: English. 'Johnson's disturbing first novel relies on language with a depth and intensity more commonly found in poetry than fiction. Though only in his mid-40s, John, an accountant at a mattress factory, approaches the eve of his retirement. At a picnic thrown in his honor, he glimpses Liann, the young alcoholic daughter of the woman he rides to work with each morning. She invites herself to his small, bleak, suburban house, where both are surprised to find Stephan, a young man from Physical Culture, a health club and bar in the city, who shares a part of John's secret life: John is in fact a masochist, with so many scars, cuts and bruises covering his torso that very few people have ever seen him with shirt off. Much of the action revolves around his abuse and subsequent efforts to conceal it....'--Publishers Weekly, 1989. Keywords: masochism, masochistic.