American Studies

by Mark Merlis

Overview

Los Angeles Times Book Prize: Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction Ferro-Grumley Award for Distinction in Gay Writing Infused with desire, betrayal, and healing, Mark Merils writes with dark humor of gay life in this century. Meet Reeve who thinks his life is over: his career is at an end and his landlord is evicting him because he made too much noise when a hustler beat him up. As he lies in his hospital bed, he finds himself brooding about the parallel ruin of his mentor Tom Slater, a famous American literary scholar. There is the further distraction of the patient in the next bed, a silent youth who arouses the desire in Reeve for straight men. One of the finest first novels to appear in many a moon. Its simple, noble, graceful prose refreshes the very language, and its unsquinting portrayal of gay men is searing and authentic. Merlis's novel belongs to the best of contemporary literature, gay or other. - Library Journal Mark Merlis's first novel accomplishes that great thing that gives fiction its claim on truth: It creates a world so real that readers believe they live in it...This is a book that transcends genre in portraying the abyss that divides one ostracized human soul from all others. - Los Angeles Times The power of this novel is in Merlis's writerly skill (his fiercely perfect timing, his flawless, always believable diction), in his comprehension of American cultural history, and ultimately in his human wisdom...With this novel, gay literature enters maturity. - James White Review Stunningly good...Haunting, funny, and masterfully written, American Studies provides keen insight into our own history and our lives. -- Genre Desolating, bitterly comic, beautifully written...an eye-opening and heart-opening book. - Richard Wilbur

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781514788349
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	09/01/1994
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.64(d)

About the Author

Mark Merlis's novels include American Studies, about a closeted literature professor in the McCarthy era; An Arrow's Flight, a riff on the Philoctetes myth, set simultaneously in the ancient and modern worlds; and Man About Town, a tale about politics and growing older set in Washington, DC. His most recent novel, JD, was published by the University of Wisconsin Press in spring 2015. Merlis's work has won the Los Angeles Times book prize, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Ferro-Grumley award for distinction in gay writing.

Editorial Reviews

Handsome prose and the erotic undercurrent of pre-Stonewall gay life strengthen this intriguing first novel. While recuperating from a hustler's brutal beating, Reeve, a 62-year-old gay man, finds his attention split between lustful thoughts for his young, straight hospital roommate and memories of his college professor and mentor, Tom Slater (a character based on critic, author and Harvard professor F. O. Matthiessen, 1902-1950). Slater, known both for his seminar on American studies and (among the cognoscenti) for his closeted lifestyle, was both a homosexual and a member of the Communist Party. Several scenes reoccur throughout this novel--particularly those of Reeve's beating and a university president's destruction of Slater's career during the McCarthy era--though neither plot nor character is further illuminated after the initial revelations. In fact, the work relies heavily on supposition: Slater's life and downfall is reconstructed as Reeve imagines it to have happened. Though this method reveals Merlis's considerable talent, it fails to raise his main characters, both passive victims, to the historical status they are due. ``He was so much a ghost that I couldn't touch him,'' Reeve says of Slater, who ultimately remains as much of an enigma as Matthiessen himself. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Reeve is lain up in the hospital after being beaten up by a man he picked up in a bar. As he recuperates, he considers his life to date, thus revealing to us the significant details. Reeve contemplates meticulously and mournfully on four levels: his flirtation with the handsome young straight in the next bed; the degradation and eventual suicide of his friend Tom Slater, a martyr to McCarthyism; his own beating by the hustler; and the outline of his life. Reeve is an uncommonly thoughtful and perceptive man; there is a wealth of feeling and literary knowledge in this work, surely one of the finest first novels to appear in many a moon. Its simple, noble, graceful prose refreshes the very language, and its unsquinting portrayal of gay men is searing and authentic. Merlis's novel belongs to the best of contemporary literature, gay or other. Recommended for most collections.-Brian Geary, West Seneca, N.Y.

Library Journal

Stunningly good…Haunting, funny, and masterfully written, American Studies provides keen insight into our own history and our lives.
—Robert Dawidoff, Genre

Robert Dawidoff

An amazing first novel, a beautifully written work of historical fiction, an impressive feat of imaginative ventriloquism.
—Christopher Bram, LAMDA Book Report

Christopher Bram