Andrew Holleran

'Astonishingly beautiful... The best gay novel written by anyone of our generation' Harpers'A life changing read for me. Describes a New York that has completely disappeared and for which I longed - stuck in closed-on-Sunday's London' Rupert EverettYoung, divinely beautiful and tired of living a lie, Anthony Malone trades life as a seemingly straight, small town lawyer for the disco-lit decadence of New York's 1970's gay scene. Joining an unbridled world of dance parties, saunas, deserted parks and orgies - at its centre Malone befriends the flamboyant queen, Sutherland, who takes this new arrival under his preened wing. But for Malone, the endless city nights and Fire Island days, are close to burning out. It is love that Malone is longing for, and soon he will have to set himself free. First published in 1978, Dancer from the Dance is widely considered the greatest, most exciting novel of the post-Stonewall generation. Told with wit, eroticism and unashamed lyricism, it remains a heart-breaking love letter to New York's hedonistic past, and a testament to the brilliance of our passions as they burn brightest. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ALAN HOLLINGHURST

"Nights in Aruba succeeds wonderfully at being at the same time a deeply serious revelation and very lively, very satisfying company." -- New York MagazineAndrew Holleran's follow-up to Dancer from the Dance, Nights in Aruba is a classic novel of love shared and love concealed told with wry humor and subtle lyricism. Nights in Aruba, Andrew Holleran's second, more reflective novel, centers around the dual life that its protagonist, Paul, leads between his fast paced "out" life in New York City and his extended visits to aging parents in Florida. He cannot quite believe what his life has become: "I had arrived at middle age and realized I had made no progress, that the moment was past--just as I would look up from a book I was reading on a Saturday in summer and realize when I saw the clock that the last decent train to the beach had left already." Years after accepting his sexuality after some electrifying time in the army and living on the Lower East Side, Paul is eventually bored by the hijinks of sex and drugs in the Manhattan disco scene. His musings and development through the novel center around his coming to terms with his homosexuality, his Catholic upbringing in Aruba, and his relationship with his parents - a businesslike father, and a bored, commanding, unfulfilled mother.

One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels"A hymn to gay liberation in the city, and to male beauty." -- Darryl Pinckney, T, The New York Times Style magazine"Nothing could be more beautiful than Holleran's tableaux of New York, those hot summer city nights when lonely men sit on their stoops or their fire escapes and stare at that endless parade of unattainable lovers." -- Boston GlobeAndrew Holleran's landmark novel of a young man's search for love and companionship in New York's emerging gay world in the 1970s, with a new introduction by Garth Greenwell. Young, astonishingly beautiful, and tired of living a lie, Anthony Malone trades life as a seemingly straight small-town lawyer for the decadence of New York's emerging gay scene--an odyssey that takes him from Manhattan's Everard baths and after hour discos, to lavish orgies on Fire Island and parks after dark. Rescuing Malone from a possessive lover and shepherding him through his immersion in this life of fierce joys and cheap truths is the flamboyant Sutherland, a high-camp quintessential queen. But for Malone, the endless city nights and Fire Island days are close to burning out, and despite Sutherland's abundant attentiveness and glittering world-weary wisdom, Malone soon realizes what he is truly looking for may not be found in these beautiful places, where life is crowded, and people are forever outrunning their own desires and death.

"As valuable as Holleran may be as a chronicler of contemporary gay history, he is one of those gay writers whose stylistic prowess and critical intelligence deserves the attention of straight readers as much as that of the gay reading community. . . . The Beauty of Men is an honest attempt to grapple with loneliness and aging without self-pity or sentimentality, and for that reason, it will last." -- Washington PostAndrew Holleran's classic Dancer from the Dance became an icon for gay men in the 1970s, portraying a man's descent from high society Connecticut to a glittering world of hedonism and promiscuity in New York City. In The Beauty of Men, his third novel, he writes a poignant story of loneliness, unfulfilled dreams, and loss of youth, set in the mid-1990s amid the ravaging AIDS crisis. Forty-seven, gay, and alone, Lark leaves behind his youth and dreams in New York City to care for his dying mother in Florida. Mourning the passing of his glamorous younger self to time and the lives of friends and acquaintances to AIDS, he looks back on his past, to years spent in pursuit of hedonistic pleasures. Middle-aged, gray, and now seemingly invisible to the world around him, Lark has survived while those around him have all been taken. Left with nothing but his memories, he is forced to contemplate the cruel emptiness and bitter loneliness of his life while longing for a stunningly handsome man, who haunts is days and dreams. Gorgeous and deeply moving, Holleran's heartbreaking novel is beyond its time; a study of the human condition and our yearning for meaning, purpose, and love in a cold and capricious world.

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE AND PAPERBACK ROW" Holleran's] new novel is all the more affecting and engaging because the images of isolation and old age here are haunted . . . In 1978 Holleran wrote the quintessential novel about gay abandon, the sheer, careless pleasure of it: Dancer from the Dance. Now, at almost eighty years of age, he has produced a novel remarkable for its integrity, for its readiness to embrace difficult truths and for its complex way of paying homage to the passing of time." --Colm T ib n, The New York Times Book Review "It's rare to find fiction that takes this kind of dying of the light as its subject and doesn't make its heroes feel either pathetic or polished with a gleam of false dignity . . . This sad, beautiful book captures the sensations Holleran's characters are chasing--as well as the darkness that inevitably comes for them, and us." --Mark Athitakis, Los Angeles Times One of the great appeals of Florida has always been the sense that the minute you get here you have permission to collapse. The Kingdom of Sand is a poignant tale of desire and dread--Andrew Holleran's first new book in sixteen years. The nameless narrator is a gay man who moved to Florida to look after his aging parents--during the height of the AIDS epidemic--and has found himself unable to leave after their deaths. With gallows humor, he chronicles the indignities of growing old in a small town. At the heart of the novel is the story of his friendship with Earl, whom he met cruising at the local boat ramp. For the last twenty years, he has been visiting Earl to watch classic films together and critique the neighbors. Earl is the only person in town with whom he can truly be himself. Now Earl's health is failing, and our increasingly misanthropic narrator must contend with the fact that once Earl dies, he will be completely alone. He distracts himself with sexual encounters at the video porn store and visits to Walgreens. All the while, he shares reflections on illness and death that are at once funny and heartbreaking. Holleran's first novel, Dancer from the Dance, is widely regarded as a classic work of gay literature. Reviewers have described his subsequent books as beautiful, exhilarating, seductive, haunting, and bold. The Kingdom of Sand displays all of Holleran's considerable gifts; it's an elegy to sex and a stunningly honest exploration of loneliness and the endless need for human connection, especially as we count down our days.

'Affecting and engaging' COLM TÓIBÍNOne of BuzzFeed's Hot LGBTQ+ Books From The First Half Of 2022Out in the drought-struck backwaters of rural Florida, The Kingdom of Sand's nameless narrator lives a life of semi-solitude, enjoying the odd, fleeting sexual encounter and the friendship of a few. His world is ageing, and the memories of another time flash, then fade - visions of parties filled with handsome young men, the parents whom he chose to spend his life besides, the generation he once knew, struck down by AIDS. But, when forced to watch the slow demise of a close neighbour, he is drawn back to the here and now, and his own borrowed time in this kingdom of sand. An elegy to sex and the body, but also a tragically honest exploration of loneliness and the endless need for human connection, The Kingdom of Sand marks the much-anticipated return of Andrew Holleran. A The Millions Most Anticipated Books of 2022

One of the great appeals of Florida has always been the sense that the minute you get here you have permission to collapse. The Kingdom of Sand is a poignant tale of desire and dread--Andrew Holleran's first new book in sixteen years. The nameless narrator is a gay man who moved to Florida to look after his aging parents--during the height of the AIDS epidemic--and has found himself unable to leave after their deaths. With gallows humor, he chronicles the indignities of growing old in a small town. At the heart of the novel is the story of his friendship with Earl, whom he met cruising at the local boat ramp. For the last twenty years, he has been visiting Earl to watch classic films together and critique the neighbors. Earl is the only person in town with whom he can truly be himself. Now Earl's health is failing, and our increasingly misanthropic narrator must contend with the fact that once Earl dies, he will be completely alone. He distracts himself with sexual encounters at the video porn store and visits to Walgreens. All the while, he shares reflections on illness and death that are at once funny and heartbreaking. Holleran's first novel, Dancer from the Dance, is widely regarded as a classic work of gay literature. Reviewers have described his subsequent books as beautiful, exhilarating, seductive, haunting, and bold. The Kingdom of Sand displays all of Holleran's considerable gifts; it's an elegy to sex and a stunningly honest exploration of loneliness and the endless need for human connection, especially as we count down our days.

"Incandescent angels of love ... an eclectic voyage." Two heroes, reflective Peter and Byronic Chase, indulge their youthful appetites in Florence. Over the next 20 years their paths diverge and reconverge. Chase marries into the Italian aristocracy and Peter pursues his passion for Lorenzo, a beautiful young Florentine. The past impinges on the present as the story of Chase's ancestor, Orvil Starkweather, is revealed - the secrets of his life sounding a counterpoint to Chase's. New York City's Central Park and the imposing figure of designer Frederick Law Olmsted provide a mysterious connection to Chase's life. The story of the two men unfolds in Florence and New York exposing the unimagined and startling connection with the past, and taking them finally on a fateful cruise up the Nile aboard the luxury yacht the Blue Star. Originally published in 1985, this new edition contains a 2020 foreword by Andrew Holleran

Describes a New York that has completely disappeared and for which I longed - stuck in closed-on-Sunday's London' Rupert Everett Young, divinely beautiful and tired of living a lie, Anthony Malone trades life as a seemingly straight, small town lawyer for the disco-lit decadence of New York's 1970's gay scene.