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.
"A wizard at blending levity and pathos, Leavitt writes gracefully about wounded, acutely self-conscious characters." The Chicago Tribune "[T]he sombre tale is absorbing from start to finish." The New Yorker "Leavitt explores loneliness, longing and entitlement with careful, precise language that is a privelege to read." The Detroit Free Press --
Leavitt, in his first novel since the controversial While England Sleeps (Houghton, 1995), proves once again that he can accomplish much through his clean, spare narrative style. A master at creating the internal dither we experience when we misunderstand our surroundings, Leavitt relies on irony to explore the world of mismatched characters as they attempt to create, but mostly ruin, relationships. Paul Porterfield is the title character, an 18-year-old would-be pianist who is called upon to turn pages for his musical idol, the fortysomething Richard Kennington. They fall in love a few months later. Add to this mix Paul's mother, who also falls for Kennington, and Kennington's much older male lover of more than 20 years. Mistrust, abandonment, and betrayal abound, and each character knows all too well what those things are. But the hope for love is plentiful, and that is the substance of the novel. With each turn of the page, we uncover the mystery of love in the characters' lives as they experience it. Highly recommended for all fiction collections.‘Roger W. Durbin, Univ. of Akron Libs., Ohio
"A wizard at blending levity and pathos, Leavitt writes gracefully about wounded, acutely self-conscious characters." The Chicago Tribune "[T]he sombre tale is absorbing from start to finish." The New Yorker "Leavitt explores loneliness, longing and entitlement with careful, precise language that is a privelege to read." The Detroit Free Press --
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