Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Provocative and Disturbing but Worthwhile, June 5, 2003
By A Customer
Since Michael Lowenthal's first book The Same Embrace was enjoyable, I assumed the same would be true for Avoidance. Warning: Fans of The Same Embrace will not find a similar work in Avoidance. People who saw great promise in the writing of The Same Embrace will see this promise being taken one step further in Avoidance. Lowenthal is a writer who challenges and respects his readers and allows the reader to draw conclusions without being judgmental. I thought it would be a typical coming out/coming of age story. The book is anything but typical. It tells the story of Jeremy Stull, an adult who still relives the memories of summer camp-the same summer camp he attended as a child and now is a staff member as an adult. Jeremy seems to be struggling in life. Though the reader can assume that he is gay, he has had relationships with some women and a man, but the encounters are rare so he is probably best categorized as questioning. His life is challenged when he becomes infatuated with a young, troubled boy at the camp. He deeply wants to have an intimate relationship with the young man, and is jealous of the director who seems to also be interested in the boy. He has to put his feelings on hold when he learns that the camp director, a victim of sexual abuse himself, abuses the boy. Jeremy realizes just how close he came to actually committing the same crime. The plot of the story is challenging to the reader. Homophobic people could see it as proof that gay men are attracted to young boys, but a careful reader would not come to such a conclusion. The book really deals with the complications that can arise when healthy boundaries are crossed and how at times, the consequences can be devastating for all people involved. Lowenthal makes his readers think and challenge preconceived ideas regarding sexuality and attraction. His book can also be a warning about how we form relationships and what can happen when relationships go awry. Though not a major theme in the book, we also see what a gift the trust of a child can be, even if the child is not the easiest child to like, and the consequences of what happens when trust is destroyed.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ostracism and the Flesh, April 7, 2003
The concept of Michael Lowenthal's Avoidance is, of course, to juxtapose two insular communities whose fears over the dangerous pleasures of the the flesh lead them to ostracize one of their own. These communities are the Amish, about whom the lead character Jeremy Stull is doing his post-graduate research, and a summer camp called Ironwood that has been part of his life since childhood. These blend nicely, though I have to admit I found the Ironwood thread more compelling and clearly central.In an atmosphere of Catholic priest scandals and Michael Jackson obsession, Lowenthal tackles the topical subject of man-boy love. Jeremy falls in love with troubled skaterboi Max, who is 14 and, like many his age, more sexually aware than we might assume. Max's mother is dying of AIDS, and his future looks cloudy. He skates by on punk brio and Manhattanite hipness, but he's vulnerable and confused underneath. When he's molested by someone who works with Jeremy, Jeremy reports the crime but wonders if the difference between him and the perpetrator, his close friend Charlie, is really so great.
Meanwhile, his Amish friend Beulah has been shunned by her community. Other Amish characters let adolescent rebellion jeopardize their own membership. This novel soars on the strength of its believable characters whose psychological profiles have been clearly thought-out, including secondary ones like motherly tomboy Caroline and wizened detectives Peter and Mullen. Even more compelling is Lowenthal's prose, always on the edge of poetry, evocative and lovely as he describes what for many of us is highly nostalgic: the fireworks and ghost stories, the canoes and hikes of long loose-jointed days at a summer camp. Lowenthal also shows an element of self-destructiveness in his two parallel main characters, Beulah and Jeremy. If Jeremy were able to sublimate his lust for Max until a certain more appropriate age, what would be wrong with continuing their rich relationship? Why did he paint himself as a predator when, clearly, he was better than that? Beulah too had an out she didn't take. She could have joined her husband in leaving the Amish community, whose practice of shunning seems unnecessarily cruel. The book had me cheering for these outsiders but wishing they were more resourceful and self-confident. The book begins on a bright summer day, in a chattering crowd, and ends in darkness in loneliness in loss. It's a fall from grace story, a long requiem for the death of its main characters' loves and connections. But there is some happy news: Lowenthal has stepped beyond the pigeonhole of gay novelist into the bright company of today's finest writers.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Rare pleasure in gay literature, January 12, 2003
In a word: EXCELLENT.In a few words: This is one of those rare novels in what we call the gay literature that is both a page-turner and a serious novel with serious themes. It raises a number of important questions: What is child abuse? Is consentual physicality between an adult and a minor always wrong? Are the parameters of behavior set by a society always in the best interest of the individual? The writing is elegant, with poetic traces in the use of language. Although it is at times a bit overdramatic, Lowenthal's style is lean. His writing is direct and to the point, and always evocative of the deep feelings that the characters experience in their moral dilemmas. This one is not for airheads at the poolside.
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