The Bear's Guide To Depilatory Wax by Barry Lowe

He was the ugly face of twinkdom – until he discovered he was a swan.
                                               
Blurb:

Esben has been the ugly duckling all his life, suffering the derision of his family and his schoolmates. In adult life, even his best friends talk about him disparagingly to his face, calling him butt ugly, playing cruel jokes on him, until one night they go too far. Humiliated beyond all endurance, drunk and alone, he decides to end it all but finds he is too chicken even for that. A few drinks are all the courage he needs, or so he thinks. He heads to the nearest bar where his misery is finally laid to rest. 

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Excerpt:

The wind was icy around my ears, but it scarcely registered. I had come this far and I so wanted to take that one step more that would finally wipe away the years of pain. I had endured for twenty long years, surely that was enough. I knew from experience that God was a cruel bastard, I’d never realized until now He was also a sadist.
A lifetime of pain and misery versus sweet oblivion. It was a no-brainer, and yet I hesitated. I was chicken shit. All those people who’d called me names, who’d bullied and belittled me, were right. I couldn’t let them be. That would be the ultimate humiliation. As the only person who ever really loved me, I wrapped my arms around my body in final surrender.
One last glance at the dark swirling waters below. It looked so inviting, so warm from my position atop the railing meant to prevent pedestrians from plummeting over the side of the bridge. Ah, sweet serenity. I silently cursed the world. I jumped.
* * * * 
“Ewww, he’s an ugly little bastard,” are the first words I remember hearing as a child. My parents assured me they weren’t the first but all comments, said within my hearing, were of a similar ilk. The one I remember was uttered by my Uncle Joe when I was around four. My aunt Connie reprimanded primly, “Joe. Manners.” Then peering at me through her spectacles added, “But the little tyke is on the homely side.”
I discovered years later that I’d got my revenge in advance by pissing on Connie’s nice new frock when she picked me up out of my crib as a baby and let out an exclamation of surprise similar to her husband’s. I wish I could remember that. It seems she’d commented on the excess of hair on my portly little body by describing me as a ‘monkey baby.’
The same night as my uncle’s outburst I lay awake listening to my mum sob in her bedroom next door. She and dad were discussing me loudly enough that I could hear just about every word. They seemed to be of the belief that with ugliness came deafness. It would have been a godsend.
“Perhaps we should check with the hospital. They might have given us the wrong baby,” she said. I insulted her self-esteem because both my dad and mum were singularly attractive – everyone said so – and were expected to produce a brood of remarkable-looking offspring. Like my older sister, for example, or my younger brother. Both excellent examples of superior genetics.
My mother, for example, was the top-rated weather girl, as well as moonlighting as the impeccably groomed wallpaper who turned the letters around on a popular quiz program. My dad, was a local political figure of whom great things were expected. They pushed family values and old-fashioned mum and dad apple-pie virtues in my dad’s poll-time literature, littered with family photos. Just not mine. I was never part of that family.