Customer Reviews

Lawnboy

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Lawnboy is a beautifully realised, erotic and at times wonderfully sexy read from first time author Paul Lisicky. The characterisations are spot on and the story of a young gay guy's emotional and spiritual growth is quite riveting. This is a remarkably bittersweet tale which effectively portrays the "topographical" emotional growth of Evan a seventeen year old "gay everyman" Lisicky sets his novel against the decaying suburban world of South Florida and uses this to symbolically portray the ever existing dysfunctionalilties that can exist in contemporary families. Evan nurtures a private world which is full of sexual and emotional longing and Lisicky effectively juxtaposes this with the indiscriminate ugliness of the landscapes he walks in. Adolescent confusion, the first gay sexual passion, sexuality in the age of AIDS, sibling and parental relationships and the transience of everyday life are all addressed with startling alacrity in this book. There is a genuine compassion evident in Evan's journey through adolescence - witness his first relationship with the older and world weary Willam and its subsequent disintegraton. There is compassion evident in his strained relationship with his overbearing father, ineffectual mother and his sexually ambivalent brother. The passion is evident in his affair with Hector, the sexy urbanite. This leads to ultimate fulfillment in the arms of the affable and altuistic Perry. This is an incedibly naturalistic and gritty piece of work and Lisicky never "sugar coats" or compromises Evan's circumstances and his desperation to be loved. Evan moves on in life and at the end of the novel we hopefully see him grow up. Lawnboy is a wonderful examination of the growth of the young gay male psyche and this is something that I think people whether gay or straight can at some point in their lives relate to.

Michael Leonard

Lawnboy treats its characters; gay, straight, and undecided with compassion, probity and wit. I couldn't put it down and this coming of age novel of the lead character Evan is a real page turner. Note how the author allows you to smell something on almost every page and how an olfactory evaluation of a person is a language in and of itself. Lawnboy can and should be read and enjoyed by everybody and not considered genre fiction. The author draws the amazing characters well and then sets them in motion as they scramble for the answer to big question: "why are we here, what is worth doing?" and comes up with some great insights. I see hints of Cunningham's Home at the End of the World here but Lisicki is definately an original.

Paul Lisicky's Lawnboy is an engrossing excursion that steadily drives through the shallow interpersonal relationships that haunt us at the end of a disillusioning century to the endpoint of introspection. Though enormously sucessful as a storyteller, it is this clinical examination of what has happened to us as individiuals searching for acceptance, for love, for some organization of the chaotic emotional world in which we find ourselves that the author makes this novel so successful. Lisicky's characters are well drawn, and if they seem a bit out of focus when it comes to their cravings and drives, their encounters sexual and otherwise, then it is to his credit that he can so deftly focus on the fears and weaknesses we all harbour. That the characters include gay men/boys is only incidental; there are no stereotypes. Lisicky has managed to paint a visual and cerebral landscape of Florida as a metaphor of how we have misguidedly "improved" a natural landscape much the same as we whittle away at our lives. There are no absolutes here, only glimpses of things gone awry. This is a clarion call for reaccessing the way we take care of each other on this lonely planet.....and this is a VERY fine first novel!

This book was a great surprise! I found it difficult to put down! I enjoyed watching Evan learn about himself and deal with the twists and turns in his life. I was eager to see how it all would turn out! All the main characters are extremely well written and believable - Evan, his mom, his brother and Hector. I was particularly fascinated and touched by Evan's brother Peter, and the contrasts in their own self-understandings and self-acceptance. I would certainly enjoy reading a sequel. This is a good novel on learning to accept yourself for who you are, and finding understanding for others who cannot accept themselves or others due to ignorance or fear. I recommend this book and intend to read more from this author.

I strongly recommend you read this one for yourself and decide what you think and feel about Evan, about Paul Lisicky and about LAWNBOY.

I picked up this book when I saw Michael Cunningham's blurb on the back cover -- I was in the bookstore to pick up another of MC's novels, and wound up with two very good reads. By the time I finished LAWNBOY, I knew precisely what it was that Michael Cunningham praised so highly, and found myself in complete agreement. I heartily recommend you read it for yourself and decide.

For readers of gay-themed fiction, Lisicky does "re-landscape [the terrain] of American fiction", in a very oblique way.

The story in a nutshell is that when the young Evan comes out to his parents, he feels impelled to leave home and begins a picaresque journey to ... well, exactly what, or where, is hard to describe. He starts a relationship, it ends. He goes off to find his brother, he leaves. In the end, it's not so much that he finds himself as his life finds him -- and that's what got under my skin about this book.

At the finish, I found myself ineffably sad. In the conventional narrative, the protagonist takes actions that causes consequences that leads to further action. In Evan's life, the actions he takes seem to happen by default, not by design. This is what I found so disturbing, and so true-to-life. As far as the limitations of the secondary characters mentioned in the other reviews, I don't think that's so much a flaw of the writer's vision as one of Evan's limitations, perfectly in keeping with the point of view and perspective of this haunting novel.

The other reviewers were also spot on about Lisicky's characterization of the Florida landscape; next to Evan it was the strongest character.

What a beautiful novel. You'll want to read "Lawnboy" twice: once just to enjoy the story itself, and then a second time to savor the wordplay. The narrator, Evan, has a remarkable eye for detail. You'll notice it when he describes every plant in his surroundings (the Florida everglades provide a rich backdrop for this story), when he describes objects, and when he describes a person. He doesn't just merely relate the events as they happen; he also paints sensuous pictures of his experiences by relating the scents and smells of every room he is in and every person he meets. A fascinating and absorbing narrative style for a wonderful story. You will miss Evan when you finish this book.

I have rarely been as effected by a work of literature as I was by this book. Lawn Boy is a book that praises the fine miracle of surviving adolescence. Its author possesses the nuance and bravery of a poet (perhaps Bishop?)-- I was charmed. I foresee Lawn Boy's eventual placement within our canon of queer (frustrated and sublime) tales of coming of age. It deserves to rest alongside White's A Boy's Own Story and McCullers' The Member of the Wedding. Bravo!!

Lawnboy was definitely easy summer reading. I enjoyed it while I was basking in the sun, book in hand. The book is fundamentally broken down into three sections: (1) the main character living at home with his parents before coming out, (2) living with his older and first boyfriend, shunned by his parents and many others, including the person who's supposed to be in love with him, and (3) post-romance, coming to grips with independence and himself, and starting over. In fact, the book has a strong "starting over" theme prevalent throughout. With each step in the narrator's life, he starts over and grows a little bit each time he does. It's a good coming of age story, even though the characters could have been a little more interesting, and we could have gotten to know them a little better. Having read Paul Lisicky for the first time, I thought his writing and ideas definitely stand out from a lot of the gay fiction that's out there, but I just wanted more development.

Rarely do I hate for a book to end but I truely hated turning the last page of Lawnboy. This novel was sad and at the same time, oddly optomistic. Thanks to Paul Lisicky for such a wonderful read.

"Lawnboy" is one of the best novels I've read this year, mostly because of the complexities of Evan, the main character. The contrasts within his personality are immense: sometimes there's a hopeful, albeit shaky, optimism about some aspect of his life. The next moment, his mind has shattered the positive image and turned down the path of worry and impending doom. He's such a likeable and bizarre person, and I often found myself wondering what kind of observations he'd make next. Evan is hilarious one moment, then extremely deep the next, all while trying to juggle the various relationships in his life. Unfortunately, Evan is so alive that most of the secondary characters come across as somewhat two-dimensional (except for Evan's brother Peter...it's not difficult to see they're related). Although several loose ends were tied up at the conclusion, I was disappointed with the choppiness and speed in which it took place. Of course, much of that disappointment is simply because I was sad to see my time with Evan end. There are few better recommendations for any book than, "I wish it lasted just a bit longer." I'm going to miss Evan's incredible imagination and his unique take of the world.