With the Editor: Dirk Necessary, A Man’s Man’s Journey:

Dirk Necessary, A Man’s Man’s Journey, is a novella length (30,000 words) young adult fictional account of a teenaged boy on a personal quest to discover the man within himself. He is driven to this quest by an external world which views him as less than manly, a diminutive stature, and a name that is decidedly girlish. Lacking a strong male figure or directed rights-of-passage, he turns to his two confidants, a poster of Heather Locklear and his horse, for guidance and support. Heather is the primary instigator of the quest activities as she tells our young hero that all the real men she knew, “had mustaches, were tall, had muscles, got in fights and won most of them, were not afraid to get dirty and avoided bathing, played sports, smoked cigarettes, were brave and courageous, and were lady’s men.” With this list in hand, he strides, at times stumbles, through an intention driven coming of age pursuit. He is accompanied by his imagination, an unwavering optimism, a fascination with Latin phrases and ancient Greek philosophers, and his sagely horse, Balthazar. Along his journey, he finds a perspective on manhood that both conforms to and contradicts the societal norms of Heather’s definition of manliness. His culminating act to release the man within is to legally change his name to Dirk Necessary.