Martin Bauman is 19 years old when Ronald Reagan ascends to the
presidency of the United States. A student at a prestigious
university, Bauman is ambitious, well-read, and insecure. But the young
literary aspirant,
characterized by his fellow students as "ready to pounce on a sure
thing,"
considers himself a "cheat." While at school he becomes enthralled by
Stanley Flint, a former editor
and legendary éminence grise who can make or break careers, who
is
teaching an exclusive writing seminar at the university. When a
prestigious, omnipotent magazine (The New Yorker thinly
masquerading in these pages as simply "the magazine") later publishes
one of his short stories -- a story with a gay character -- Bauman is
propelled into the
murky demimonde of 1980s publishing. He publishes too early and is
disappointed both by the reactions his book elicits and his first
real relationship with a man (a fellow writer).
Flint,
meanwhile, continues to intersect his life at dramatic moments.
Throughout the book, Bauman covets the approval, and love, of his
mentor. Torn between the desire to please and compete with Flint, he is
too caught up in his own ambitions to really develop a relationship with
him.
Some easy parallels can be drawn between Bauman and his creator.
Leavitt,
like Bauman, published a story early in The New Yorker. A Yale
graduate,
Leavitt was a highly touted bright young thing during the 1980s. Great
expectations were foisted upon him -- he was lauded with the
burdensome description of being "one of his generation's most gifted
writers" by The New York Times.
Martin Bauman is gossipy and mondaine, but
to call it a roman a clef would not accurately describe Leavitt's
accomplishment. The novel inhabits an uneasily drawn border between
fiction and life. The publishing world Leavitt evokes in the novel is
portrayed with a
survivor's eye. It is a testament to Leavitt's skills as a writer that
the
writers, agents, editors, and wannabes that
circulate around Bauman are fully wrought creations, as vindictive,
wise,
and inspiring as they are sad.
Mostly Leavitt does a fine job reproducing some of the literary debates
of
the time: about how AIDS should be written; the burden of speaking for,
in
contrast to from, an experience; and "coming out" and "outing." A
discussion
between Bauman and Flint about art and commerce is a little wooden and
unconvincing, but is soon overtaken by Leavitt's ornate and masterful
prose. The novel's conclusion is rewarding, and the final sentences are
haunting in their accuracy. David Leavitt has rendered in prose what his
character could not. His accomplished novel is an engaging
narrative of both an emotionally stingy time and a young man who wants
only
to be loved.
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