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    The Lost Language of Cranes
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    The Lost Language of Cranes
    Unavailable
    The Lost Language of Cranes
    Ebook379 pages7 hours

    The Lost Language of Cranes

    By David Leavitt

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    'One of his generation's most gifted writers.' New York Times
    'An amazingly perceptive novel.' San Francisco Chronicle
    'Fascinating... lingers in the mind' New York Times Book Review

    Owen and Rose are facing serious challenges to their married life of routine and monotony as New York City grows and changes around them. They spend most Sundays apart; while Rose buries herself in crosswords and newspapers, Owen visits gay porn theaters.

    But when they discover they may lose their apartment and their son, prompted by his new relationship, reveals his homosexuality, their lives cannot continue as they were. Owen and Rose are forced to confront not only their son's revelation but also Owen's latent homosexuality.

    Poignant and lingering, this is a tale of love and relationships, secrets and unspoken desires.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateJun 30, 2014
    ISBN9781408854594
    Unavailable
    The Lost Language of Cranes
    Author

    David Leavitt

    David Leavitt's first collection of stories, Family Dancing, was published when he was just twenty-three and was a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Faulkner Prize. The Lost Language of Cranes was made into a BBC film, and While England Sleeps was short-listed for the Los Angeles Times Fiction Prize. With Mark Mitchell, he coedited The Penguin Book of Short Stories, Pages Passed from Hand to Hand, and cowrote Italian Pleasures. Leavitt is a recipient of fellowships from both the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He divides his time between Italy and Florida.

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    Reviews for The Lost Language of Cranes

    4/5

    12 ratings9 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I’ve heard about this book for years & finally got around to reading it. It’s strongly felt and strongly written, one of the earliest and most honest books about being a gay man in 20th century America. It details with the issues of two men, one an older married man who gradually faces his desires, and the other a younger man who accepts himself but does not accept the possibility of being loved. The wife/mother is finely drawn too.
    • 4/5
      A well-written novel. Not quite a coming-of-age novel, but rather a coming-to-terms novel detailing the main character's sexual maturation, his decision to reveal his homosexuality to his parents, and the ramifications of the announcement. Although the story line may now seem dated or mundane, the very ordinariness lends a certain sweetness to the story. Especially since it is intertwined with the background of the quickly gentrifying NYC of the 1980s and the effect of change on longtime habits & modes of being of the characters.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I enjoyed reading "The Lost Language of Cranes," which surprised me because I didn't find David Leavitt's writing style particularly engaging. However, the story itself, a quintessential coming out tale, was put together well. Leavitt has interesting ideas that (especially the story that relates to the title)that elevates the book above the run-of-the-mill.The novel tells the story of Owen, Rose and Philip, their gay son who falls in love for the first time and struggles with the idea of coming out to his parents. Owen and Rose are in the process of losing their home -- not just the physical house -- but everything that makes them the family they've been. The book is all about the way people communicate -- or avoid doing so -- and the way those languages filled with secrets and routines hold people together.Really interesting concepts packed into a average story. I thought the book was worth reading, but it didn't inspire me to pick up more of Leavitt's works.
    • 2/5
      That is a novel and quite original story line, but the narration, style and language are unfortunately a bit boring, tiring, easy to guess. So, the best thing about this book an what made me buy it), is its title. But dont expect too much of it...
    • 4/5
      Compelling study of a family living in early 80's Manhattan. The characters are largely sympathetic, the writing draws one right in, and Leavitt has an enviable way of marking details so that they are both fascinating and telling. There was, however, a strong sense that these characters live lives in which most actions are continuous and repeated and important thoughts and emotions occur often but at no particular, specific time. It is as if they live constantly in the past imperfective, and while I'm sure that was intentional and pointed, it did became tiresome by the end of the book.
    • 3/5
      A routine story of family secrets and conflicts, it's only the gay theme that lifts it above the run-of-the-mill. Well-written, but not particularly engaging. I suspect I would have enjoyed it more if it had been about Niles and Frasier ...
    • 3/5
      I wasn't impressed with this one. Leavitt has a tendency to tell us what's happening, then take three steps backward to tell us what led up to that happening, filling in the even earlier backstory along the way. The result is that you read 10 pages to find out: Owen is walking somewhere. His wife is home working (and they have to either buy their apartment or move, and they have a grown son, here's what his apartment is like, and here's what they talked about when she had lunch with him one time and then she took a cab ride but that was another day because now we're back in the apartment hearing about how her husband was gone when she woke up and now it's page 14 and she's working, like she was on page 4, and she's going to go for a walk.) Then we meet the son and his lover, but now we're going back 3 weeks to read the story of how they met.Novels don't have to be completely linear, but I began to feel like I was floundering around inside this one, trying to find the story, trying to figure out if anything was actually going to happen that related to the situation the author chose to begin his novel with. (It does, but by the time it did I cared less than I had at the beginning.)Some of the dialogue seems contrived. Phillip sounds like a bad parody of a mental health counselor: "I miss her. I feel very sad about it." And some of the conversations between father and son toward the end of the book, I just found impossible to swallow, which in turn made the relationship seem false. Since that relationship was a pivotal part of the novel, it was disappointing to say the least.
    • 5/5
      Explaining the title kind of spoils the book. However, the title has little or nothing to do with what happens in the book. I remember the cranes part more than the rest of the book.
    • 4/5
      I found this an involving story, although not a book that I could not put down, in fact I could take only so much at a time, unlike many novels which I have to force myself to take a break from. The writing is very detailed and descriptive, and this seems to hold up the narrative such that at times I became impatient to know what happened next. The story itself is very interesting, revolving around Owen and Rose and their son Philip. Philip is gay and is looking for that elusive life long partner, but has not yet come out to his parents, when he finally does it opens up other family secrets.