The Night Listener
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Famed for his newspaper-column Tales of the City saga, Armistead Maupin has made the transition to fully fledged novelist with panache. Maintaining the wit and conversational duelling of the Tales--indeed, sharp-eyed fans will find odd intrusions from the past here--Maupin's The Night Listener is a gripping novel, brilliantly plotted and ultimately extremely moving, exploring "the chance to feel love without boundaries".
When yet another book manuscript drops onto Gabriel Noone's doormat craving his approval, the beloved late-night radio storyteller is sceptical--but this one is different. It's The Blacking Factory, the autobiographical tale of Pete Lomax, a child abused and sold for sex by his parents, who has survived, thanks to his adoptive mother, psychologist Donna. Flattered that this young boy is an inveterate night listener of his shows, Gabriel contacts Pete, and in time their telephone relationship blooms into something approaching father and son--until Gabriel begins to have doubts about who Pete is. At the same time, Gabriel's father falls ill and his life truly becomes "a loose confederation of uncertainties".
Perhaps this new emotional pull isn't altogether unsurprising beause like many others of his generation of gay writers--Edmund White, Andrew Holleran, Felice Picano--Maupin is now trading more explicitly in the raw materials of his own life. Gabriel Noone shares much with Armistead Maupin--a writer, whose fame is based on a popular form, raised in South Carolina, based in San Francisco, with a lover who leaves him when it becomes clear he's not about to die, and a same-named and difficult father. But Maupin has always been more cagey than his peers about revealing too much of himself--Noone, like his creator, is "a fabulist by trade", overly given to embroidering his stories, or "jewelling the elephant" as he puts it. And for all it reveals about Maupin the man, in its final pages The Night Listener protects its author's privacy--refusing to distinguish between fact and fiction, and refusing to allow that distinction to become important. --Alan Stewart --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Product Description
Gabriel Noone is a writer whose late night radio stories have brought him into the homes of millions. Noone is in the midst of a painful separation from his lover of ten years when a publisher sends him proofs of a remarkable book: the memoir of a sickly thirteen-year-old boy who suffered horrific sexual abuse at the hands of his parents.
Now living with his adoptive mother, Donna, Pete Lomax is not only a brave and gifted diarist but a devoted listener of Noone's show. When Noone phones the boy to offer encouragement, it soon becomes clear that Pete sees in this heartsick, middle-aged storyteller the loving father he's always wanted. Thus begins an extraordinary friendship that grows deeper only as the boy's health deteriorates, freeing Noone to unlock his innermost feelings.
Then, out of the blue, troubling new questions arise, exploding Noone's comfortable assumptions and causing his ordered existence to spin wildly out of control. As he walks a vertiginous line between truth and illusion, he is finally forced to confront all his relationships - familial, romantic and erotic.
As complex and hypnotically engrossing as the best of mysteries, The Night Listener is an astonishing tour de force that moves and challenges Maupin's readers as never before.
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I picked up the "Night Listener" in sheer frustration at not being able to find another book that I was interested in. But it was like finding a 20 pound note in your jeans pocket when your skint! I loved this book, the mystery, the emotions, his style of writing. I felt that through parts of the book, a bit of the author was seeping through on to the page. If you like happy endings....be prepared! I read this book four months ago and I still haven't reached any conclusions yet, but my feeling is, it has been left for me to make up my own ending. I don't know if this was his intent but I'm doing it anyway.
I have now read all of Armistead Maupins books, I will be forever grateful he became a writer, because he has given me hours of pleasure.
I have now read all of Armistead Maupins books, I will be forever grateful he became a writer, because he has given me hours of pleasure.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Night Listener is one of the most unputdownable books ever - and that does not mean it is a thriller (although its hall-of-mirrors mystery structure brings that genre to mind) nor a will-they-marry romance (although many types of love - familial, pseudo-paternal, friendship and others - are skilfully and tenderly evoked); rather it is a unique combination of a devastatingly moving love story between two people who, it seems, may never meet, a memoir of a sad, dysfunctional family and a dark journey into one man's soul. And , my God, how can it be, but it is - it's also very funny. Humane to the point of breakdown, subtly structured to the point of screaming tension - it's the best this English graduate has read for years.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
How do you define love? How do you picture someone you have never met? And how are you able to believe so much when you understand so little? With "The Night Listner" questions are raised, personal inner most fears are realised and the people who are closest to you answer a question whilst raising dozens more. Maupin has, in this book, excelled. He helps us to feel on so many levels what the characters are experiencing. Hard hitting issues are well presented without the need to "glamourise". From page one you become hooked with his writing feeling almost musical in its descriptions. I can recount many emotions emerging as I read about Noone's rollercoaster ride, from actual tears and sorrow, through to laugh out loud moments. Maupin intertextual style of writing in this book does not become evident until the very final few pages, which makes it such an interesting read. High praise to Maupin. An extrordinary piece of literary prose.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Utterly believable
Gabriel Noone, gay and out, is a successful writer and networked broadcaster with a nightly radio slot where he reads from his writings. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Benjamin
Interesting
This is a good read, but there were things about the story that irritated me a bit. I don't want to spoil in my review so I won't go too much into why, but when Gabriel started to... Read more
Published on 19 July 2007 by S. Dawson
An unnerving read!
I guess I must be alone in feeling somewhat uncomfortable with the relationship between a man in his late fifties who keeps saying he loves an abused 13 year old. Read more
Published on 11 Mar 2007 by DM Webster
Very Interesting Read!
I must admit to having not read Armistead Maupin before, I had heard of his work but have not previously been tempted to indulge.... Read more
Published on 18 Mar 2006 by Martin Belcher
Pretentious attempt at literary allusion
Mr.Maupin has written a series of popular character driven novels, and 'The Night Listener' will appeal to those familiar with his previous work.Here Mr. Read more
Published on 31 July 2005 by I. R. Young
Fiction about Fiction
I've always loved Maupin's work, seeing it primarily as 'comfort food fiction', although definitely your organic dark chocolate kind as opposed to high-sugar candy. Read more
Published on 7 April 2003
I Still Think Mr Maupin is genius
Wow what a book. I'm a huge fan of this authors previous work, and whilst this book is different in terms of mood I still give it ten out of ten. Read more
Published on 8 Feb 2003 by E. Brown
Bit of a come down.
After loving 'The Tales of the City' books, and adoring 'Maybe the Moon' , 'The Night Listener' was a bit of a come down for me. Read more
Published on 8 Jan 2003 by DASF
An amazing kick your heals back read
Maupin has yet again managed to create a masterpiece. The links to Tales of the City are subtle. How amazing is this man? Read more
Published on 11 Oct 2002 by "ajwallace2"
Paranoia-fuelled melodrama
Yes, this book is a guaranteed page-turner, but largely due to the soap opera-like situations and manipulative end of chapter cliffhangers. Read more
Published on 24 Aug 2002 by Jonathan Pex
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