[.ca] The Night Listener (ISBN 0061120200)

From Amazon.com:
Many years ago, when the first volume of Tales of the City was going to press, Christopher Isherwood compared its author's narrative gifts to those of Charles Dickens. This has proven to be the blurb of a lifetime, an ever-renewable currency appearing on almost all of Armistead Maupin's subsequent books. Yet it has held up well--Dickens's gentle satire and broad good humor live on in Maupin more than in any other English-speaking writer. The Night Listener is his most ambitious work to date. While not strictly autobiographical, the story does teasingly suggest correspondences to the author's own life in a way that will delight and frustrate his many fans. The main character, Gabriel Noone, is a professional storyteller who broadcasts roughly autobiographical sketches for a long-running PBS series, "Noone at Night," stories about people "caught in the supreme joke of modern life who were forced to survive by making families of their friends." When the novel opens, Gabriel is still reeling from the announcement that his much younger, longtime partner Jess (a.k.a. Jamie in the "Noone at Night" stories, and a.k.a. Terry Anderson, Maupin's real-life, much-younger partner, for those who like to track associations) wants to move into his own apartment and start dating other men. With the success of his HIV cocktail, Jess has exceeded his own life expectancy. Having prepared himself so well to die, he now needs to learn how to live again. To Gabriel's distress, Jess's new life involves leather, multiple piercings, and books on men's drumming circles. When an editor sends Gabriel yet another book to blurb, he reluctantly opens the package to find a long, rending memoir by Pete Lomax, an HIV-positive 13-year-old survivor of incest, rape, and sexual slavery. The book is called The Blacking Factory, after the miserable London bottling factory where Dickens spent part of his poverty-stricken childhood. As Gabriel reflects: Pete thinks we all have a blacking factory, some awful moment, early on, when we surrender our childish hearts as surely as we lose our baby teeth. And the outcome can't be called. Some of us end up like Dickens; others like Jeffrey Dahmer. It's not a question of good or evil, Pete believes. Just the random brutality of the universe and our native ability to withstand it. After Pete escaped from his parents and was adopted by a therapist named Donna Lomax, his slow recovery was helped along by his memoir-writing and by frequent doses of "Noone at Night." Touched by Pete's devotion to his stories, as well as the boy's obvious need for a father figure, Gabriel finds himself drawn into an intense relationship with his young fan, involving long, late-night phone calls that begin to worry Gabriel's friends. And, other than their mutual need, how much does he really know about Pete, anyway? As Gabriel begins to question his own motives, as well as those of the boy, The Night Listener transforms itself from an absorbing but quotidian story of loss and midlife angst into a dark and suspenseful page-turner with a playful metaphysical aspect and an un-Dickensian sexual candor. --Regina Marler

incredible:
This was just an excellent book, so different from what else is out there to read. I recommend this book to anyone (unless you have a real problem with homosexuality). If so, it wouldn't be your cup of tea. I enjoy reading about people's lives that are different than mine. I intend to read everything he's written.

Wow:
Gabriel Noone is a self described "fabulist by trade". He is an openly gay San Francisco radio show host. His whole life changes when he recieves a package with a book in it. He has been asked to write a blurb for the back. This is nothing new to him and he expected not to even open the book at first. But with his life falling apart around him, he decides to read it. It is the autobiography of a 13 year old boy by the name of Pete Lomax. From early childhood Pete had been sexually abused by both his parents and and a ring of pedophiles from the Midwestern states. He meets this boy and becomes close friends with him, communicating only over the telephone. After questions arise to the authenticity of Pete, Gabriel begins his journey to prove that Pete is real once and for all. This story is made up of many multi-dimensional characters that allow you to be completely engrossed in the story. Armistaud Maupin makes this book both disturbing and enlightening, light-hearted and dark, and both good clean fun and deeply sexual. The book is a relatively quick-read despite it's many pages of small type, the pages will fly by as you try to solve the mysteries of Pete's existence and that of Gabriel Noone's struggle to find himself. I do not recommend this book to those who are not incredibly mature. Both because of the sexual references and because of the disturbing mystery of the book. I myself found my head spinning and had several sleepless nights before finishing the book. To those who are able I highly suggest this book.

Not believable, except in parts:
I found this book to be a fun read, but it's not a "masterpiece" or a "triumph." Even by Maupin's "Tale of the City" standards, this is a strangely unsatisfying novel. I thought the storyline itself was confusing and did not really lead much of anywhere. I was fascinated with this book more as a document of Maupin's self-indulgence than as an act of fictional creativity. I would have liked to see a novel that spent more time with Noone's breakup with his long-time lover, Jess. The dynamics of Noone's heartbreak in the context of seeing a lover move from almost certain death to a completely different plane are handled wonderfully, but it would have been preferable to see this story moved to the forefront and the hokey 13-year-old-as-counselor gimmick moved to the background. The novel that Maupin really should have written, unfortunately, is not what we get.

MAUPIN'S PROSE IS ENTHRALLING - HIS VOICE ARRESTING:
While the movie version of The Night Listener certainly didn't set any box office records, for this listener the audio rates high largely because of the affecting narration provided by author Armistead Maupin. This is a poignant story of a man who feels lost and unloved, and Maupin reads it with insight, illuminating the fears and doubts that possess protagonist Gabriel Noone. Gabriel comes to life at night - he's a Manhattan based late hours radio host, Noone At Night. He's also a gay man who has broken up with his partner, Jess. After finding himself evidently free of the AIDS virus Jess wants more in life than he is finding with Gabriel. While Gabriel only wanted Jess. Especially vulnerable due to an abusive father who publicly ridiculed him and would never recognize his homosexuality, Gabriel is depressed and feels useless. He seeks to assuage that feeling by connecting with a young fan, Pete Lomax, who lives in Wisconsin. Pete has suffered as much or more than Gabriel at the hands of physically abusive parents, and now in a struggle with AIDS. The two, Gabriel and Pete, quickly develop a warm, supportive father/son relationship all by telephone. Gabriel, of course, again feels needed. Eventually, Gabriel decides to go to Wisconsin to see Pete. What he finds there is totally unexpected. Those who enjoyed Tales of the City will once again find themselves enthralled by Maupin's prose. His voice is icing on the cake. - Gail Cooke

Fiction first but plenty of entwined autobiography:
"The Night Listener" is one of those really good books, which gets progressively better as the story develops. The primary plot is about the relationship between late night radio host, Gabriel Noone, and a 13-year-old boy, Pete Lomax. Pete is suffering from AIDS as the innocent victim of serious and prolonged sexual assault propagated by his father and others. Donna Lomax, a lady doctor who Pete first talks to on a child abuse hot line, has adopted him and tries to give him the love and security to which every child is entitled. Pete has committed his sad tale to writing and sends the "set of bound galleys" (manuscript) to Gabriel Noone in whom he has developed a trust from listening to his nocturnal banter on the radio. They communicate by phone and soon reach a level of intimacy in which Pete refers to Noone as Dad. The trust is almost absolute and it is only when a tiny suspicion is fed to Noone by Jess (see below) that the seeds of doubt form in Noone's mind. Noone and Pete's relationship is based entirely on their phone calls, as the two have never actually met. Noone has frequent phone conversations with Donna too, building up another bond of trust and friendship. The plot develops wonderfully and this fictional part of the book is excellently put together. In parallel with the main story line is the clearly autobiographical thread of Maupin's own life. There is the difficult relationship with his own father, an ageing homophobic man who won't acknowledge or discuss his feelings. There's his young stepmother and, as can often be the case, this is one tricky relationship. Then there is the recently ended long-term relationship with his partner Jess, a younger man who has turned to a more macho type of gayness. Whilst Jess has moved out of their shared home and taken new lovers, the two of them maintain a friendly but not intimate relationship for personal and business reasons. The book has a strong gay theme, which for me was quite an eye-opener, particularly one graphically described pick-up in a long distance truck driver's toilet block and the subsequent consummation. The writing style is descriptive and eloquent and one memorable passage describes the death of Noone's dog, written with exceptional clarity and passion. However, the main theme, revolving around the welfare of Pete, is told with building suspense which makes the book very hard to put down.