Authors: Matthew Stadler,Columbia University. Writing Division
Tags: #Young men
Landscape: Memory (31 page)
Dear Robert,
We've started up through these barren hills, following the yellow torrent of the Vardar. We'll be the first back to Gievgieli since Colonel Hunter withdrew, bringing, I pray, some hope that the typhus might be contained and beaten.
The Serbians seem to regard the epidemic with morbid pride, a badge of honor that is distinctive, not among the incomprehensible modern afflictions that now ravage the rest of Europe. A plague is the proper, traditional path to annihilation and the Serbians regard vaccination as a sign of cowardice, a breaking with the past.
In this valley the air is hot and moist. Irregular, white, red-roofed villages meander along dry rocky slopes where squat little oxen and black water buffalo drag their creaking carts. The train took us as far as the frontier.
The frontier marks the end of cultivation, acres of arable land, gone fallow or planted thick with graves, run the river's course, high into the mountains. Occasionally one sees a single, broken beast, dragging a wooden plow crudely fashioned from the dark twisted oak, led by an old woman in bright, colorful rags, a soldier guiding the plow. There are not enough men left in Serbia to work the land. Four wars in three years and now typhus. "All the men in Serbia are in the army or dead," we're told. "And all the oxen have been taken by the government."
Gievgieli is in quarantine, hundreds of hungry people pressing against the fences, looking out into the barren valley. Chloride of lime had been spilled up and down every post, marking every empty wall and tree trunk. Black flags hang thick down the narrow streets, the sign of a death within the house.
Those that saw me offered embraces, regarding me as one would a foreign priest, wanting a particular cure, a blessing, a kiss, to see them through their sickness. Everyone in this town will likely die during my few months here. Gaia Matitch asked if I would grow orchids. We passed the afternoon playing cards, the postmaster and Gaia Matitch and I in a wordless, laughing round of some three-card game with no rules and no winner, where one would draw a card and show it and we'd all laugh and the next would do the same until the heat was too much and we slept.
PLUME (0452)
_______________________________________________
PLUME quality Paperbacks for Your Enjoyment
AMBIDEXTROUS The Secret Lives of Children by Felice Picano.
A bold, funny, outrageously truthful story that evokes the forgotten sensations, fears, and thrills of a child's world. Nine months on the Christopher Street bestseller list. "Rich, charming, naughty!"—Andrew Holleran
(263158—$7.95)
LIVES OF GIRLS AND WOMEN. Alice Munro.
The intensely readable story of Del Jordan grappling with life's problems as she moves from the carelessness of childhood through uneasy adolescence in search of love and sexual experience.
(261848—$8.95)
LIE DOWN IN DARKNESS. William Styron.
The eloquent story of Peyton Loftis, the beautiful desperate daughter of a wealthy Virginia family, and the tragic consequences of her intense search for love and understanding.
(261287—$9.95)
PRICKSONGS & DESCANTS. Robert Coover.
Exemplifying the best in narrative art, these fictions challenge the assumptions of our age. They use the fabulous to probe beyond randomly perceived events, beyond mere history
(263603—$8.95)
Prices slightly higher in Canada.
PLUME (0452)
_______________________________________________
THE CONTEMPORARY SCENE
MEN WHO LOVED ME A Memoir in the Form of a Novel by Felice
Picano.
When Picano returns to Manhattan's West Village, he gets caught up in the gay movement and orgies of drugs, music, and beautiful people, "Zesty ... a distinguished and humorous portrait of a vanished age."— Publishers Weekly
(265282—$8.95)
SHOCKPROOF SYDNEY SKATE A Novel by Marijane Meaker.
Its an erotic adventure that becomes Sydney's hilarious, poignant journey toward adulthood, where love isn't what he expected—and yet it may be so much more than he ever dreamed.
(265398—$8.95)
UNUSUAL COMPANY by Margaret Erhart
"Graceful... convincing and sensitive."— Booklist Franny meets Claire in Rizzoli's bookstore, and for weeks this strange, lovely woman becomes her obsession. Beginning a journey of spirit, Franny moves away from her safe existence into Claire's demimonde of dangerous love and exotic violence....
(264421—$8.95)
THE CATHOLIC by David Plante.
Daniel Francoeur is a young man uneasily aware of his gay sexuality—a sexuality both nurtured and tormented by his passionate religious feelings. This remarkable novel is a brilliant and startlingly honest exploration of spirituality and passion, guilt and eroticism, exegesis and obsession. "Vivid . . . wonderful."—Andrew Holleran, in Christopher Street
(259282—$7.95)
Plume
_______________________________________________
NOVELS OF GENIUS AND PASSION
NIGHTS IN ARUBA by Andrew Holleran.
At the center of this novel is Paul, an uneasy commuter between two parallel lives: one as the dutiful son of aging, upper-middle-class parents, the other as a gay man plunged deliriously into the world of bars, baths, and one night stands. It is a story of love shared and love concealed.
(263956—$8.95)
THREE NIGHTS IN THE HEART OF THE EARTH by Brett Laidlaw.
Bryce Eraser is the precocious younger son of a college professor/poet and his wife. He is about to experience three days in his family's history that will transform his world and theirs. As in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, the characters in the Eraser family are both ordinary and heroic ... and headed toward tragedy This powerful and moving, exquisitely written family novel reveals an extraordinary fictional talent. "Admirable... A narrative that achieves considerable intensity and grace."— The New York Times Book Review
(262208—$7.95)
JOB'S YEAR by Joseph Hansen.
Oliver Jewett has reached his fifty-eighth year It is his time of truth. He must face the present, the lover he feels himself losing, the young man who tempts him so dangerously This wise and mature novel lays bare the workings of the human heart and of a good man in a troubled territory familiar to us all.
(261171—$8.95)
MONTGOMERY'S CHILDREN by Richard Perry
"Perry shares Toni Morrison's gifts for psychological as well as pathological insights. The male bonding between Gerald and Iceman is reminiscent of Milkman and Guitar's in Song of Solomon. Perry's gift makes him a writer to be savored and watched."— The Village Voice
(256747—$7.95)
Prices slightly higher in Canada.
PLUME (0452)
_______________________________________________
COMING OF AGE
THE SALT POINT by Paul Russell.
This compelling novel captures the restless heart of an ephemeral generation that has abandoned the future and all of its diminished promises. "Powerful, moving, stunning!"— The Advocate
(265924—$8.95)
PEOPLE IN TROUBLE by Sarah Schulman.
Molly and her married lover Kate are playing out their passions in a city-scape of human suffering. "Funny street sharp, gentle, graphic, sad and angry .. . probably the first novel to focus on aids activists."— Newsday
(265687—$8.95)
THE BOYS ON THE ROCK, by John Fox.
Sixteen-year-old Billy Connors feels lost—he's handsome, popular, and a star member of the swim team, but his secret fantasies about men have him confused and worried—until he meets Al, a twenty-year-old aspiring politician who initiates him into a new world of love and passion. Combining uncanny precision and wild humor, this is a rare and powerful first novel.
(262798—$8.95)
