The Mad Cub, first published in 1970, is a sexual coming-of-age tale, illustrating how a puzzled human cub turns into a transcendent lion-being of the universe. We see the novel's sensitive, artistic protagonist at age 12, feeling overweight and unable to compete with the other boys; at 18, as a college student involved with several women and hanging out in jazz clubs while experimenting with drugs and alcohol; and in his 20s, as a poet and playwright of the Beat era, tripping on peyote and trying to reconcile a series of affairs with the love for his wife and baby daughter. Written in the spontaneous bop style of some of author Michael McClure's fellow Beats, the novel has been called painfully honest in its recounting of adolescent memories.