David Leavitt

The novel centers around several different gay men in 1980s New York City. Philip is "out" with his friends, but afraid to tell his parents that he's gay. Philip's lover, Eliot, is completely comfortable with who he is, but this makes it surprisingly difficult for Philip and Eliot to relate to each other. Philip's father, Owen, is meanwhile coming to some realizations of his own about his desires, as well as his ability and willingness to continue suppressing them. The era plays a big role show more in the story, both because it was a time when the older generation started realizing there might be other avenues open to them besides denial and living a "normal" life, and because the specter of AIDS looms large.

Communication gaps, and how we work to make ourselves understood is a recurring theme. Another is the role of confession, specifically whether revealing your secrets is a selfish act or a means to draw you closer to someone. One of the things I enjoyed about the book was that Rose, Philip's mother and Owen's wife, is as fully formed as the other characters. It would be easy to only see her through the filter of the men in her life, but she is a complete person. She faces a changing world in the city in addition to the undercurrents in her family. I found Owen the most difficult to sympathize with, but this may be a generational issue. In the book as a whole, I enjoyed the lack of easy answers or pat emotions.

Recommended for: people interested in stories of family dynamics, anyone who's ever felt alienated.

Quote: "Such efforts of affection were nothing for him; his life had been full of them, pats and caresses and casual kisses, whereas for Philip to touch a hand to a cheek was an action of such magnitude that it had to be counted, treasured, preserved. It radiated power; it demanded bravery. Philip understood that there were people in the world like Eliot for whom love and sex came easy, without active solicitation, like a strong wind to which they only had to turn their faces and it would blow over them. He also understood he was not one of those people." show less

Set in Lisbon in 1940, this is the tale of two expat couples waiting to sail to America in advance of the Nazi regime's steady progress westward and Portugal's perceptible adoption of fascist and anti-Semite policies. Still, Lisbon feels like a safe place to be and our lead characters are ambivalent about leaving Europe altogether. Leaving Paris was bad enough. Peter, our narrator, is married to Julia and having an affair with Edward (who is married to Iris). The four of them settle into an show more uncomfortable routine centering around meals together and with a four-hour block built into every day during which Peter and Edward can be alone together. Iris is absolutely aware of the affair and even contrives to support it, but Julia is presented as fragile and dependent, incapable of tolerating this infidelity (no comment). Peter's passion for Edward and his increasingly unhappy sense of duty to Julia become the foreground in this novel; in the background is the political and social scene to which these privileged Americans (okay, Iris is English but she has a U.S. visa) are largely inured. Julia, in particular, is so consumed by her grief at leaving their elegant apartment in Paris, which had been featured in Vogue, and returning to New York, which she had sworn she would never do, that she has little room for compassion or care for people whose very lives are endangered and who have no avenue for escape. The Manhattan, on which our main characters plan to sail, will absolutely not be accepting anyone without a US passport or visa.

We learn early in the novel that Julia is Jewish and that she will, in fact, not return to New York. For the rest of the novel, as Leavitt reminds us of these facts, we wonder what is going to happen to her? In the end, I was more moved by the demise of Daisy, the charming elderly wire fox terrier belonging to Iris and Edward, than by what transpires for Julia. I don't doubt that this was intentional on Leavitt's part. I've not read other works by Leavitt and I understand that this novel is less dark than some of his others, despite the time and place in which it is set and the rather sordid machinations among our four main characters. Leavitt's writing is deceptively straightforward; he effectively uses subtle metaphor and minor side plots. The novel flirts with comedy, even, but Leavitt carefully navigates around that temptation, holding steadily to a wry and even tragic compass setting. Primarily an exploration of the travails of marriage, The Two Hotel Francforts also provides an intriguing peek into Lisbon during this time of WWII. show less

Compelling study of a family living in early 80's Manhattan. The characters are largely sympathetic, the writing draws one right in, and Leavitt has an enviable way of marking details so that they are both fascinating and telling. There was, however, a strong sense that these characters live lives in which most actions are continuous and repeated and important thoughts and emotions occur often but at no particular, specific time. It is as if they live constantly in the past imperfective, and show more while I'm sure that was intentional and pointed, it did became tiresome by the end of the book. show less

This has a very promising opening, with a bunch of New York middle-class liberals at a party in early November 2016 discussing whether emigration or political assassination would be the most appropriate response to America’s latest self-inflicted disaster. It looks as though we’re in for a bright, Firbankian political satire of Trump-era life, something that would take our minds off the current nervous speculation about whether anyone could be crazy enough to vote for him a second time show more (written late October 2024).

But unfortunately, the book doesn’t really deliver on this early promise. It turns into a rather rambling adultery comedy, rather like a less-funny version of Ab Fab, in which the only real joke is the way the overprivileged characters constantly fail to realise that their worthy political ideals are undermined by the financial security blanket that insulates their lives from the consequences of the actions of even the most incompetent and self-interested administration. The only real whiff of the old Leavitt is the gay interior designer (hold on a minute: a gay interior designer? What next, flight attendants…?) Jake, who turns out to have a much-trailed-but-only-revealed-in-the-last-chapter back-story that could well have been the main plot of a Leavitt novel in the 1980s. Good in parts, but it felt like a waste of a situation that he could have done so much more with. show less