Nights in Aruba : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Author is someone who is fascinated with being depressed
Review: Ok. A few decades back like in the 50's, even 60's it was glamourous to be miserable and disfunctional. Boys in the Band, Tea and Sympathy, any Judy Garland biography. I loved Dancer from the Dance, author's first book. In fact, I still own an old worn-out copy of it on my shelf. I bought it during my coming out years, I was glad to read it and I still remember the excitment of reading it: The writing was fresh, wonderful, clever, wry. But when there is no plot, and when you are fascinated with gloom, nothing could save Nights at Aruba for me. This book left me sad, empty and unsatisfied.. It was exciting to start it, but very soon, I started wondering: is there was a point to this at all. Why does not he just get a job or something? I wondered.. Suddenly, much of Holleran's beautiful writing did not matter and was lost in vain for me. Sadness is interesting, but when there is no point to it, I reach out for Zoloft ...

Rating:
Summary: Looking back
Review: This is a story about Paul, who's looking back on his early years living in Aruba. He's getting older and discovering not only the emptiness of one-night stands, but also that he's not as unlike his parents as he would like. Holleran's sense of wry humor and his astute observations about growing older as a gay man are strong in this work and make it shine. This is a novel about the inner world, so apparently the lack of outside action aggravated some reviewers. I think Andrew Holleran is one of the best writers of gay fiction, so.

Rating:
Summary: Nights in dullsville
Review: What a bunch of self-pitying tripe this book is. The main character sees everything, does most of it, and resolutely refuses to learn anything from his experiences. He looks for love, finds it, and tosses it out the window without anything so unglamorous as motivation. And then he wonders why he is so unhappy and why his life has not amounted to anything. Has Holleran ever heard of developing believable characters, or even of cause and effect?