In this controversial anthology, award-winning critic Laurie Stone has created an astonishing collection of memoirs in which eight acclaimed writers go about the risky business of telling their own secrets. Close to the Bone scouts the territories of sex, the family, loneliness, the city, addiction, and AIDS, but these are not passive tales of victimization or sensationalistic scandal sheets. Rather, these writers speak in voices that are unflinching, unerring, and flied with revelation.