{{no footnotes, date=March 2008
''Mac'' is a youth novel by John MacLean about a young teenage boy dealing with a
sexual assault
Sexual assault is an act in which one intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent, or coerces or physically forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their will. It is a form of sexual violence, which ...
. ''Mac'' was published in 1987 by
Houghton Mifflin
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star.
Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...
.
Mac is a quiet 14-year-old schoolboy who is just discovering girls. A new girl, Jenny, joins his year group and all the 'state-of-the-art' kids boast how they are going to make her their girl. Mac is awkward and shy around her, but she makes the moves and picks him as he is different from all the other boys. But something happens to ruin their
relationship
Relationship most often refers to:
* Family relations and relatives: consanguinity
* Interpersonal relationship, a strong, deep, or close association or acquaintance between two or more people
* Correlation and dependence, relationships in mathem ...
.
Mac is sexually assaulted by the school doctor during a routine examination. As a consequence, Mac undergoes dramatic
personality changes
Personality Changes: Originally thought to be concrete and unchanging, recent studies have found evidence that personality can change throughout a person's life.
An important idea to keep in mind is that differences in personality traits among ind ...
that leaves his friends and family baffled; he is hostile to all of their efforts to discover his problem.
A professional counselor at school finally earns his trust, and Mac reveals what happened during the physical examination.