The Season of the Witch


The Season of the Witch is a novel by James Leo Herlihy. The story is written in the form of a journal that spans three months in the life of teenage runaway Gloria Glyczwycz during the autumn of 1969.

Plot summary

Gloria decides to run away from home with her gay friend John McFadden. Both of them have a reason to leave: Gloria wants to find her estranged father, and John wants to avoid being drafted and being sent to Vietnam. They head from Belle Woods, a fictional suburb of Detroit, Michigan, to New York City, where they meet a host of colorful characters. The novel explores the personal freedoms of the late 1960s, including casual drug use, draft evasion, homosexuality, and incest.