Young Martin Bauman, the central character of David Leavitt's enticing,
gossipy, just occasionally catty new novel, makes his name early on when
he publishes an "out" short story in an
influential weekly magazine known coyly (perhaps too cutely) as "the
magazine." A young Mr. Leavitt, you may recall,
made his name early on when he published the first "gay" story in The
New Yorker.
Will this bit of insider info
matter to the average reader? Will not knowing that formidable writing
teacher Stanley Flint is a character akin to
legendary real-life teacher/editor Gordon Lish, or that Seamus Holt is a
curmudgeonly caricature of the real-life
Larry Kramer, or that a cock-sucking walk-on is by a fellow just like
Bret Easton Ellis, or that there's a whiff of
May Sarton, a hint of George Stambolian, an essence of Jodie Foster, a
ghost of Gary Glickman ... Will not "getting"
any of these and many more inside riffs and references detract from the
experience of Leavitt's latest? Not really.
Sure, the shading of fact into fiction is amusing, the underpinning of
autobiography is absorbing, and there's an
intriguing overlay of literary payback in Leavitt's assured rendering of
self-important writer wannabes. But the
honest pleasure of this reflective romp by the author of Family
Dancing, The Lost Language of Cranes,
Arkansas, and The Page Turner lies in the grace and flow
of Leavitt's prose. He renders a surprisingly
emotionally complex story, about a callow writer wallowing in the early
1980s whirl of ego-rife New York
publishing, with a clarity that's impressively precise rather than glib
and gratuitous. It happens that David Leavitt's
own pre-mature success and perceived stumbles (the flap over the late
Stephen
Spender's cranky assertion that Leavitt "appropriated" his life for the
novel While England Sleeps) have often
overshadowed his talent; but it happens here that Martin Bauman: Or,
a Sure Thing, is a worthwhile,
marking-time kind of read from a talented fellow.
-- Richard Labonté
Read Lawrence Chua's review of Martin Bauman
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