This is a new novel, copyrighted 2000, by an author already well established and, in many circles, well known.
You, as reader, need to answer four questions before beginning the book…
If you answered “yes” to all four questions you will, I am sure, really like this work. If not, you will most likely find it pretentious, tiring, and on the whole, dreary.
The protagonist Austin, a late forties guy, an ex-patriate, has been living in Paris for a number of years. He has had a number of serious relationships, has a number of sophisticated, cosmopolitan acquaintances and a few gay friends, has some renown in his esoteric professional field of French antique furniture, and is filled with ennui. (See what I mean about pretentious!)
He meets a young married French architect, Julien. They ease into a relationship which apparently deepens into love…or not. The story, covering the next four or five years, documents the couples’ relationship, tracing them through moves back to the United States (with visits to Key West), back to Paris and ultimately to Ethiopia where Julien had worked and had married.
There is much to recommend this book…the author’s sensitivity in describing Paris and Parisian life cannot be beaten. His literary descriptions are so real as to be palpable…the smells, the sounds, the colors, the very ambiance of Paris truly float off the page. The characters as so well drawn that they live…but the motivation for their behavior…what the hell planet are they from!!?
For example…At one point Austin decides to cease any sexual contact with his lover…now how’s that for a mature approach to interpersonal relationships! I have thought a lot about that particular decision and I cannot fathom why? And why did Julien put up with it? How could such an arrangement be anything but negative and destructive?
The characters also pout and sulk a lot. Maybe my gay relationships have been built on false pragmatism, but Damn!, why don’t these guys talk to each other about what’s bothering them…and a lot seems to be bothering them.
As a reviewer I am somewhat disturbed by the review blurbs on the book jacket. I wouldn’t expect really bad stuff but these opinions fairly glow with praise… things like… “nothing less that brilliant”… “a devastating love story”… “marvelously life-affirming.” These (famous) reviewers have, it seems, read a different book.
So…if you answered yes to all four questions above I’ll loan you the book…you’ll like it. If not, I’d suggest something else; you get to decide!