Passionate Spectator
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
In the ninth volume of his memoirs, Peter Leroy, summoned for jury duty, allows his mind to wander, and slips into the mind of Matthew Barber, who finds himself in the cardiac catheter lab in a Boston hospital, where he allows his mind to wander, and slips into the mind of Bertram W. Beath, who checks into a hotel in Miami’s South Beach and into a life as an erotic opportunist and passionate spectator of beauty and human folly.
“Middle age, mortality, and the meaning of life: all are examined with the lightest touch imaginable.
Kirkus Reviews
“Ebullient, canny, and entertaining.
Donna Seaman, Booklist
“As devious as a Möbius strip, turning in on itself, doubling back through events that have already occurred, and generally subverting our Newtonian world view.”
David Kirby, St. Petersburg Times
“A personal journey that is mundane in detail yet mythic in scope . . . a gamboling reflection on the ways in which memory shapes supposedly objective history . . . colorful, incisive prose and off-kilter wit.”
Steve Smith, Time Out New York
Nothing less than an assessment of each person’s place in the universe . . . as a spectator who gives shape to life simply by watching and remembering.”
Jim Ridley, Nashville Scene
When Peter Leroy buys a copy of Creative Self-Promotion for Taxidermists from a street bum, he unwittingly sets in motion an odyssey from truth to fiction to truth in a novel that is much less confusing and more revealing than these few words might indicate.”
Dallas Morning News
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In his 10th novel featuring the irrepressible Peter Leroy, Kraft steers his engaging protagonist into the thickets of freelance writing as Leroy attempts to fund a series of unusual adventures by helping others write their memoirs. Leroy lives in New York City, where he and his pianist wife, Albertine, maintain a precarious existence short on money but long on compassionate understanding. As the novel begins, Leroy is itching to slip again into one (or several) of his elaborate fantasies ("I am a crowd... one of the people one passes on a New York street who hear inner voices"). Albertine ("I have heard her referred to as my long-suffering wife") acts as his enabler, gently encouraging him to indulge his flights of fancy and experiment with alter egos. The scene switches from New York to Boston and then to Miami as Leroy assumes the imaginary identities of Matthew Barber, a heart patient, and Bertram Beath, a lothario who makes a habit of sleeping with total strangers. Meanwhile, Leroy's memoir-writing business languishes, though he expands it to include pets. It's not always clear what Leroy remembers from previous forays as Barber and Beach, and what triggers his transformations, but the reader is distracted from any minor inconsistencies by Leroy's endearing frankness and Albertine's wry, tolerant wit.
