Arkansas: Three Novellas - Softcover

Leavitt, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0395901286 ISBN 13: 9780395901281

Publisher: Mariner Books, 1998

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 this title

Review:

David Leavitt's reputation has rested upon stories and novels that explicate a sedate, upper-middle class world of reserved emotions and sexuality. In his new collection of three novellas Arkansas, he explores new territory. Droll, surprising, and very sexy, these works often shock and startle the reader. In "The Term Paper Artist," a writer named David Leavitt writes school papers for cute undergraduates in exchange for sexual favors, and in "Saturn Street." a gay man who delivers lunches to homebound people with AIDS falls in love with one of his clients. Beautifully written and alarmingly funny, Arkansas is one of the best works of gay fiction in years.

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0395901286
• ISBN 13: 9780395901281
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208