Synopses & Reviews
Review
"Classic Leavitt - writing with subtlety, maturity and compassion about the complexity and fragility of human relationships." The Los Angeles Times
"Sly, self-knowing, and hilarous." The New York Times
"Spectacularly effective fiction." Time Magazine
Synopsis
David Leavitt's first work of fiction since"While England Sleeps", these novellas explore the themes of escape and exile. By turns comical, lyrical, and speculative, they testify to the redemptive capacities of both the human heart and the literary spirit.
Synopsis
Here are three novellas of escape and exile, touching and funny and at times calculatedly outrageous. In "Saturn Street," a disaffected L.A. screenwriter delivers lunches to homebound AIDS patients, only to find himself falling in love with one of them. In "The Wooden Anniversary," Nathan and Celia - familiar characters from Leavitt's story collections - reunite after a five-year separation. And in "The Term-Paper Artist," a writer named David Leavitt, hiding out at his father's house in the aftermath of a publishing scandal, experiences literary rejuvenation when he agrees to write term papers for UCLA undergraduates in exchange for sex.
About the Author
David Leavitt's first collection of stories, Family Dancing, was published when he was just twenty-three and was a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Faulkner Prize. The Lost Language of Cranes was made into a BBC film, and While England Sleeps was short-listed for the Los Angeles Times Fiction Prize. With Mark Mitchell, he coedited The Penguin Book of Short Stories, Pages Passed from Hand to Hand, and cowrote Italian Pleasures. Leavitt is a recipient of fellowships from both the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He divides his time between Italy and Florida.
Table of Contents
The term paper artist -- The wooden anniversary -- Saturn Street.