The Dew Drop Kid

Hank Fielding, Blueboy Library, 1978

The story of a successful Manhattan commercial artist and his tempestuous relationship with a part-time hustler/grifter, The Dew Drop Kid owes a debt to both Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) and Mart Crowley’s The Boys in the Band (1968) in both its bitchiness and its sharp depiction of the way sex appeal can slice through a bundle of warning signs and temporarily disable that irritating brain itch designed to override the high of infatuation long enough to reveal the grown-up fact that long-term relationships are two handers: If only one partner is committed, it won’t hold up in the long run.