Beijing: A Novel [Hardcover]

Philip Gambone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 10, 2003

Escaping his ghosts, AIDS widower David Masiello accepts a one-year position at a Western medical clinic in Beijing. Lonely but excited, he sets out to explore the city—both its bustling street life and its clandestine gay subculture.
    David chronicles his adventures in China as he wrestles with cultural dislocation, loneliness, and sexual and spiritual longing. After a series of both comic and poignant encounters with gay Chinese men, he meets Bosheng, a handsome young artist. Though the attraction is strong, a difficult courtship ensues, during which Bosheng returns to his ancestral village to marry the girl his parents have chosen for him. Eventually, and quite unexpectedly, David and Bosheng reconnect and share an idyllic spring together. As the year ends, David must decide whether to say goodbye or face the uncertainties of a long-distance relationship.
    Gambone’s novel is peopled with a host of wonderfully memorable characters: Owen, David’s forthright best friend back home; Auntie Chen, the clinic’s office mom, who wants to fix David up with a girlfriend; Stewart, David’s Beijing roommate, a graduate student doing research on Peking opera; Jiantao and Guoyang, two lovers who lecture David on the fleeting quality of American romance; and Tyson, the Australian doctor with a Chinese girlfriend, who hopes to teach David that love doesn’t need any explanations or justifications.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This debut novel is thoughtful and complex and often exquisite. It told me a great, great deal about fascinating people and places and, most important, human emotion. Beijing moves seamlessly between the funny and the utterly heartbreaking."—Scott Heim, author of the novels Mysterious Skin and In Awe

"Beijing will entertain and amuse many readers, even people who aren’t gay or who don’t often read about travel. Reading this book felt to me like being told a story by a friend."—Gillian Kendall, coauthor with Mark O’Brien of How I Became a Human Being: A Disabled Man’s Quest for Independence

From the Back Cover

"Beijing will entertain and amuse many readers, even people who aren't gay or who don't often read about travel. Reading this book felt to me like being told a story by a friend."-Gillian Kendall, coauthor with Mark O'Brien of How I Became a Human Being: A Disabled Man's Quest for Independence

"This debut novel is thoughtful and complex and often exquisite. It told me a great, great deal about fascinating people and places and, most important, human emotion. Beijing moves seamlessly between the funny and the utterly heartbreaking."-Scott Heim, author of the novels Mysterious Skin and In Awe

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press; 1 edition (April 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0299184900
• ISBN-13: 978-0299184902
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,623,971 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars TONGZHI, April 21, 2003

By 

Rich (Rehoboth Beach, DE) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beijing: A Novel (Hardcover)

Tongzhi means "friend" or "comrade" in the westernized version of the Chinese language known as Pinyin. Tongzhi might also be the subtitle for Philip Gambone's new novel Beijing, which chronicles his year working for a small health agency in the Chinese capital city and trying to overcome the loss of former friends and lovers while looking for new ones.

Beijing is the latest in a growing genre of travel-focused books penned by popular American gay writers. But unlike David Leavitt, Edmund White, and Michael Cunningham, whose novels on Florence, Paris, and Provincetown seem more like prose poem praises to their selected destinations, Gambone's look at Beijing is grittier, sweeter, ... Now don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my leisurely strolls through Florence, Paris, and Provincetown with Levitt, White, and Cunningham. I just liked my hike through Beijing better.

I've visited Beijing only once. For five days only. And from my limited perspective, I think Gambone does a good job portraying the big crowded city and its friendly people, ugly housing developments, air pollution, boy soldiers, bicycles, and wonderful little tea houses. I found myself saying, "yes, that's just the way I remembered it" or "I wish I'd experienced that." I liked that he didn't fill the book with flowery recollections of the Forbidden City or the Great Wall. I also appreciated his honesty and frankness, especially with regards to his loneliness, horniness, and gradual and growing attraction to Chinese men.

Gambone's novel isn't perfect. There are a few sections I found boring, and the main protagonist gets a bit whiny at times. But, all in all, it's an informative, friendly read, especially if you're interested in China and gay life in China. Check it out.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gay travel adventure where West meets East., September 25, 2003

By 

M. J Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beijing: A Novel (Hardcover)

David Masiello's trip to Beijing is the stuff made from heaven. This remarkable novel is structured around the four seasons, and we see the David's journey through the perspective of each changing season. Each section gives us just a little more insight into David's journey, as he gains confidence and gradually adjusts to living in a foreign culture. His story is fictional, but it could almost read as a non-fiction travelogue, and I suspect that much of what is written was gleaned from Gambone's own experiences traveling through China and living in Beijing.

Living in Boston, stuck is a rut, pining for his dead boyfriend; David takes the initiative and applies for a job at a Western medical clinic in Beijing. Then his life changes forever as he confronts parts of himself, and goes on an exciting journey of self-discovery to become "whole again."Gambone masterfully takes us on David's journey from the nervous, worrying pre-flight preparation to the anxiousness and excitement of his first night and weeks in China. All the sights, sounds and smells of Beijing are seen through the prism of David's eyes - the eyes of an inexperienced and somewhat hesitant traveler. The trash on the streets, the drab colours of the University dorm that David is forced to sleep in, the food, the endless smog, the crowds of people cycling to work, the market stalls, the militaristic boy soldiers, the warmth of the people, and the furtiveness of Chinese gay life are all bought vividly to life.

As David becomes more comfortable with the city, he also searches out the closeted gay life, which he knows must exist in the city. At night he cruises the local park in the hope of making contact with men; he finds the Ta Ta Club, a local watering hole for gay men, and he goes to a bathhouse, where gays are reported to furtively meet. During his year in Beijing he meets many interesting people and makes many good friends. And he also finds time for love with Bo, a handsome young Chinese artist, who makes him understand the limitless possibilities for love again.

Anyone, gay or straight who has picked up and left familiarity, particularly anyone who had lived in another culture for an extended length of time, will find a lot to admire in this novel. The East/West divide is ever present, particularly the East's cultural attitudes to homosexuality. Traditional "family values" are ever present in this society: Auntie Chen, David's work mate constantly asks why he is not married and many of the young gay men David meets confess to him that they are under pressure from their parents to find a girl and marry. But the book also presents the the boarder theme of the new China - a China that's rapidly opening its borders to the West, and stumbling towards open markets and capitalism with differing degrees of success. In one important scene David looks out over his apartment building and stares with a mixture of wonder and shame at "nothing but tall bland buildings, as far as the eye can see, pillars of reinforced concrete, heaps of steel. This is the new China - wondrous and shameful." Beijing is an insightful, thought provoking book on loneliness, longing, cultural dislocation and a country that is undergoing rapid change.

Michael

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Year of Discovery, September 13, 2005

By 

beardocnj - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beijing: A Novel (Hardcover)

I was fascinated by the diversity and extremes in the reviews! As an avid reader of "literary" gay-themed fiction, I took a chance on this book and was rewarded with a fascinating look into a culture hidden from most Americans, gay or straight. I suspected from the outset that there was an autobiographical element to Mr. Gambone's writing - he is secure and at ease writing of the culture and nuanced layers of life in China - including the inevitably present but furtive world that China's gay population lives in. The story captivates one from the outset and takes one on a roller-coaster of emotional highs and lows that one might expect if left to fend for oneself in a world filled with mystery and exploration. Complicate that by the longing for companionship (to be with like-minded individuals) and you have a story that is heartfelt and universal, a story of loss and discovery, of fears and elation, of playing teacher and pupil. As the tour guide, Mr. Gambone takes us far afield of the tourist attractions and makes a gem of this story of love and loss in China.