Holland seems to have a twofold purpose [in The Man Without a Face]. One is to speak some psychological truth on the matter of homosexuality; the other is to alleviate anxiety and to absolve guilt in the young adolescent reader about his own homosexual inclinations or acts. In order to do this and perhaps to take some of the fright out of homosexual longings, she presents a relationship between an older man and a young boy that facilitates growth. She locates the psychological motivation for the boy's love in his "lost" father…. Holland conveys what is missing in the family by what she includes in McLeod, the father surrogate. And this is, to my mind, a little alarming, for McLeod himself is an old patriarch—somewhat of a marine. It would seem that the moral of this story is the only way Charles can shore up his masculine...