American Studies

by Mark Merlis

Reeve thinks his life is over: his career is at a dead end, his face is a mess, and his landlord is evicting him from his apartment because he made too much noise when a hustler beat him up. As he lies in his hospital bed, he broods about the parallel ruin of his comrade and mentor Tom Slater, a famous American literary scholar (a composite portrait of the critics F.O. Matthiessen and Newton Arwin) who dabbled in Communism and was driven to suicide during the McCarthry era. There is further distraction in the patient in the next bed, a silent youth who arouses in Reeve dangerous longings for the sweetness and menace of straight men. Never at a loss for the telling detail or bitchy aside, the author offers a sweeping view of gay life in this century. Dark humor and decadent prose infuse this first novel of desire, betrayal and healing.

Editions of American Studies

ISBN 9780140250909	Binding/Format Paperback	Publisher Penguin USA	Date 1996	Price $1.00	Used, Very Good
ISBN 9781593501181	Binding/Format Paperback	Publisher Alyson Pubns	Date 2009	Price $9.53	NEW
ISBN 9780395689929	Binding/Format Hardcover	Publisher Houghton Mifflin	Date 1994	Price $3.99	Used - Good

Publisher Notes

A witty look at gay life over the last fifty years focuses on Reeve, a hospitalized sixty-two-year-old gay man, who thinks back to his college years and his troubled relationship with famed literary scholar Tom Slater. A first novel. Tour.

Media Reviews

"While brilliantly conveying the desires, regrets and traumas of an ageing man who lived through the decades of sexual and political oppression following the war, this remarkable debut novel tells a moving, darkly humorous and highly intelligent story of passion, personal longing and human frailty. Totally captivating, this is strongly recommended for young, old, straight and gay."