Paul Lisicky

enjoyed Lisicky's story tremendously. It's simply damn good writing about growing up in New Jersey in a family that is thoroughly human, with all its warts and flaws showing. (I especially enjoyed his peeks at his father's extended Slovak-American family in Allentown, PA, area.) And fifty years later they all still seem to love each other in spite of whatever differences they might have. If gay writers need a non-threatening poster-child, then Paul Lisicky fits the bill. His lyrical style of show more writing fits his sensibilities. He knows he's "different," but he simply accepts it and gets on with his life the best he can. Good job, Paul. show less

I just finished reading FAMOUS BUILDER and am still reveling in your language and the pure physicality of how emotion is expressed in that writing. It took me soooooo long to read because I had to savor every word, and many times reread a line to marvel at it again. I see that you wrote it kind of long ago, so it’s probably weird to be hearing a fan’s notes yea these many years later, but it’s still immediate to me so forgive me if this comes across as oddly fawning and a bit late for show more the bus. I actually read portions of this around 2003 when I taught an online memoir class and found this book listed on the “recommended” list. I used parts of it then to exemplify precise writing and how to express feelings without ever naming a feeling.
I think it’s so hard to express adolescence without sentimentality or obviousness and especially its undercurrents of disconnectedness mixed with inexplicable yearnings, but this narrator does it with such tenderness through these vignettes of experiences. As a reader I was so moved by the character and his family, his relationship to the things that caught his attention: the iconic home-building (and the joy of street names), the liturgical music career, Mrs. Fox and her furnishings, the clothing and unclothed, the delicate and shifting tensions with his father, places lived, smells smelled, people animated into objects--all rendered so stunningly. As a writer I appreciated the change in tenses and the choices made about using different points of view and how those elements added richness to the story being told, the essayistic quest of each chapter, the threads below that kept circling up to tie it all into a whole, the courage to go there and explore the crevices where our stories reside, the artful words and images, and again, the precision. I can see how short shorts would be attractive to you and why yours are so marvelous. Every word matters. You make every word matter. show less

After reading the sentences about anger and Paul’s relationship with his father, I knew I was in the hands of a master. “He wanted his skin to rub off into us so we would not forget the cost of everything he did to give us the life we had. The martyring. And if that isn’t anger in the purest, most frozen form, then I can’t read the world.”

This memoir revolving around Provincetown in the early nineties is full of choice writing. With our current Corona Virus, it’s hauntingly show more refreshing to remembers the AIDS crisis and the impact on relationships through the lens of Paul Lisicky. show less

This is a story told from the point of view of a young man who is exploring his own identity. They all believed me to be kind, kind, affectionate, and upright. Of course, I could be all of those things. However, there was much more to me than that, a side that even I found unsettling, and this side involved William.
The story begins with seventeen-year-old Evan agreeing to mow his next door neighbor's lawn during the summer. This employment leads him into more than just a summer job, but show more introduces him to an erratic world of desire and treachery. He moves in with 41-year-old William after being estranged from his parents and older brother. This starts a series of unsuccessful attempts to create a new home. He must decide whether to put his family or his passion first. Lawnboy by Paul Lisicky traverses the lush and turbulent landscape of the early 1990s, its south Florida environment as fertile and problematic as Evan's inner turmoil. It was first published to widespread acclaim in 1999. show less