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Literary Lion

David Leavitt reveals his story with the
patient and sensuous mastery of a skilled lover.

       David Leavitt came on the literary scene about 20 years ago when he sold his first story to The New Yorker as a Yale undergraduate. Continuing to provide a book every few years since 1987, during the past decade Leavitt developed as one of several authors who are gay to watch for the intriguing interplay of happenings and relationships and, perhaps as important, to observe the joys and torments of writing. I found his new book, The Body of Jonah Boyd, particularly fascinating partly because Leavitt reveals his story with the patient and sensuous mastery of a skilled lover.
     Leavitt has received fellowships from both the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Recently The New York Public Library made him a Literary Lion. A professor of creative writing at The University of Florida, Gainesville, he has continued to grow as a writer skilled at unfolding a story with nuance and emotion. Leavitt is part of current queer life and will be part of our history. He deserves attention from anyone who enjoys fiction. Those, like me, who have not always enjoyed reading novels because they find themselves missing, might introduce themselves to the novel through Leavitt's books.
      To begin following his writing journey I suggest starting with Leavitt's The Lost Language of Cranes. The books authored by Leavitt include: Family Dancing; The Page Turner; The Marble Quilt; Martin Bauman, or a Sure Thing; Place I've Never Been; While England Sleeps; The Term Paper Artist; Italian Pleasures; Equal Affections; Florence: A Delicate Case; and Arkansas. With Mark Mitchell, Leavitt has written or co-edited several more notable books, including Pages Passed from Hand to Hand: The Hidden Tradition in Homosexual Literature in English from 1748 to 1914, and In Maremma: Life and a House in Southern Tuscany. Leavitt wrote Original Youth: The Real Story of Edmund White's Boyhood with Keith Fleming.
      His literary life has not been without difficulty. When While England Sleeps was published, poet Stephen Spender claimed Leavitt had plagiarized his memoir World Within World; Leavitt counter-claimed that the events of a person's life can't be plagiarized. In reply, Spender sued. Leavitt withdrew While England Sleeps and revised it before continuing to market the book. Then he wrote The Term Paper Artist, a novella contained in the collection Arkansas, in which it first appears he is telling the story of his argument with Spender, then shifts into graphic gay sex. In a moment of what one critic called "homosexual panic" Esquire canceled its planned publication of an excerpt.
      In The Body of Jonah Boyd, the author chose to have a narrator, Judith (Denny) Denham, a secretary, tell the story of her relationship to the Wright family, with which she plays enough different roles to make heads swim. She is secretary and mistress to Professor Wright and the four-hand piano partner of Nancy, Wright's wife.
      In what could be interpreted as a revisiting of the Spender-While England Sleeps saga, the plot centers on literary theft. The events to come don't always bring about the best in the people the author brings together. Leavitt sets up a cheeky if credible dynamic between Denny's discerning view of what is really happening and the family's perception of Denny. Leavitt uses this device beautifully to hook and hold the reader.
      One caution: there is no overtly gay character in this novel, although in an interview with The Weekly News, a South Florida gay paper, Leavitt made a case for identifying Denny as the "gay" character, a perpetual outsider - despite her clearly heterosexual activities.
      Take it from me, the plot is worthy of the other aspects of this excellent novel. I am serious when I write that I don't want to spoil its telling by providing a synopsis here. In The Body of Jonah Boyd, as in David Leavitt's other books, a goodly amount of the joy of reading comes from the fun you know he had while writing - not to suggest that writing is easy for him; on that score I have no inside information. But the way Leavitt reveals the story and characters inspires the reader to follow the facts while keeping in mind that a bright, sly intellect is ever-present and in control. I believe most will allow themselves to follow that intellect.

Robert William Wolff lives & writes in Randolph. A member of the RU12? Community Center board of directors, Wolff is a scenery, lighting, performance facility designer and potter. He is proof that one can fall in love with the Novel at an advanced age.