Binding: Paperback
Description: A NEW YORK Times BOOK Review Editors Choice AND Paperback ROW Holleran's new novel is all the more affecting and engaging because the images of isolation and old age here are haunted In 1978 Holleran wrote the quintessential novel about gay abandon the sheer careless pleasure of it: Dancer from the Dance. Now at almost eighty years of age he has produced a novel remarkable for its integrity for its readiness to embrace difficult truths and for its complex way of paying homage to the passing of time. Colm T ib n The New York Times Book Review It's rare to find fiction that takes this kind of dying of the light as its subject and doesn t make its heroes feel either pathetic or polished with a gleam of false dignity This sad beautiful book captures the sensations Holleran's characters are chasing as well as the darkness that inevitably comes for them and us. Mark Athitakis Los Angeles Times One of the great appeals of Florida has always been the sense that the minute you get here you have permission to collapse. The Kingdom of Sand is a poignant tale of desire and dread Andrew Holleran's first new book in sixteen years. The nameless narrator is a gay man who moved to Florida to look after his aging parents during the height of the AIDS epidemic and has found himself unable to leave after their deaths. With gallows humor he chronicles the indignities of growing old in a small town. At the heart of the novel is the story of his friendship with Earl whom he met cruising at the local boat ramp. For the last twenty years he has been visiting Earl to watch classic films together and critique the neighbors. Earl is the only person in town with whom he can truly be himself. Now Earl's health is failing and our increasingly misanthropic narrator must contend with the fact that once Earl dies he will be completely alone. He distracts himself with sexual encounters at the video porn store and visits to Walgreens. All the while he shares reflections on illness and death that are at once funny and heartbreaking. Holleran's first novel Dancer from the Dance is widely regarded as a classic work of gay literature. Reviewers have described his subsequent books as beautiful exhilarating seductive haunting and bold. The Kingdom of Sand displays all of Holleran's considerable gifts; it's an elegy to sex and a stunningly honest exploration of loneliness and the endless need for human connection especially as we count down our days.
Title: The Kingdom Of Sand A Novel
Author(s): Holleran Andrew
Publisher: Picador
Barcode: 9781250869036
Pages: 272 Pages
Language: English
Publication Date: 6/6/2023
Category: Modern & Contemporary Fiction