Thursday, February 27, 2003
I just finished michael lowenthal's truly brilliant new novel, avoidance; there’s a silence buzzing about me, like I’ve just finished praying. appropriately, nick cave & the bad seeds’ “bring it on” is playing. bring it on, I imagine jeremy, the novel’s protagonist, saying. after everything, it can’t be so bad. he feels like – well, like I could feel him. he’s one of the realest characters I’ve encountered in fiction in some time. I want to hold and embrace him, kiss his chapped lips softly, feel his skin and muscle shifting under his clothes, reassure him, jeremy, jer.
jeremy’s life centers around an upstate vermont summer camp, ironwood, first as a camper, later as a counselor, then assistant director by age 28. his sexuality is indeterminate – a couple of relationships with women, a furtive blow job from a man in a bathroom stall, mostly nothing, it’s unthought of. and then he’s enraptured by max, an all-limbs-and-braces 14-year-old from manhattan. this narrative is entwined with jer’s experiences with the amish, on whom he’s writing his dissertation at harvard, particularly those who leave the clan and those who are shunned. what are their post-amish lives like? are they happy with the choices they’ve made? the two, seemingly disparate strands coalesce in surprising ways within jeremy, leading to a softly whispered climax which was for me, emotionally, like being dropped off a new england mountain’s side.
addendum: lowenthal's gorgeous website plays sigur ros!
addendum 2: he has a blog!
addendum 3 (I'm stopping now, I promise): his husband is author scott heim!
jeremy’s life centers around an upstate vermont summer camp, ironwood, first as a camper, later as a counselor, then assistant director by age 28. his sexuality is indeterminate – a couple of relationships with women, a furtive blow job from a man in a bathroom stall, mostly nothing, it’s unthought of. and then he’s enraptured by max, an all-limbs-and-braces 14-year-old from manhattan. this narrative is entwined with jer’s experiences with the amish, on whom he’s writing his dissertation at harvard, particularly those who leave the clan and those who are shunned. what are their post-amish lives like? are they happy with the choices they’ve made? the two, seemingly disparate strands coalesce in surprising ways within jeremy, leading to a softly whispered climax which was for me, emotionally, like being dropped off a new england mountain’s side.
addendum: lowenthal's gorgeous website plays sigur ros!
addendum 2: he has a blog!
addendum 3 (I'm stopping now, I promise): his husband is author scott heim!
# posted by Thomas : 2:08 PM
