The Night Listener: A Novel [Paperback]

Armistead Maupin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 18, 2001

"I'm a fabulist by trade," warns Gabriel Noone, a late-night radio storyteller, as he begins to untangle the skeins of his tumultuous life: his crumbling ten-year love affair, his disaffection from his Southern father, his longtime weakness for ignoring reality. Gabriel's most sympathetic listener is Pete Lomax, a thirteen-year-old fan in Wisconsin whose own horrific past has left him wise and generous beyond his years. But when this virtual father-son relationship is rocked by doubt, a desperate search for the truth ensues. Welcome to the complex, vertiginous world of The Night Listener....

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Many years ago, when the first volume of Tales of the City was going to press, Christopher Isherwood compared its author's narrative gifts to those of Charles Dickens. This has proven to be the blurb of a lifetime, an ever-renewable currency appearing on almost all of Armistead Maupin's subsequent books. Yet it has held up well--Dickens's gentle satire and broad good humor live on in Maupin more than in any other English-speaking writer. The Night Listener is his most ambitious work to date. While not strictly autobiographical, the story does teasingly suggest correspondences to the author's own life in a way that will delight and frustrate his many fans. The main character, Gabriel Noone, is a professional storyteller who broadcasts roughly autobiographical sketches for a long-running PBS series, "Noone at Night," stories about people "caught in the supreme joke of modern life who were forced to survive by making families of their friends." When the novel opens, Gabriel is still reeling from the announcement that his much younger, longtime partner Jess (a.k.a. Jamie in the "Noone at Night" stories, and a.k.a. Terry Anderson, Maupin's real-life, much-younger partner, for those who like to track associations) wants to move into his own apartment and start dating other men. With the success of his HIV cocktail, Jess has exceeded his own life expectancy. Having prepared himself so well to die, he now needs to learn how to live again. To Gabriel's distress, Jess's new life involves leather, multiple piercings, and books on men's drumming circles.

When an editor sends Gabriel yet another book to blurb, he reluctantly opens the package to find a long, rending memoir by Pete Lomax, an HIV-positive 13-year-old survivor of incest, rape, and sexual slavery. The book is called The Blacking Factory, after the miserable London bottling factory where Dickens spent part of his poverty-stricken childhood. As Gabriel reflects:

Pete thinks we all have a blacking factory, some awful moment, early on, when we surrender our childish hearts as surely as we lose our baby teeth. And the outcome can't be called. Some of us end up like Dickens; others like Jeffrey Dahmer. It's not a question of good or evil, Pete believes. Just the random brutality of the universe and our native ability to withstand it.

After Pete escaped from his parents and was adopted by a therapist named Donna Lomax, his slow recovery was helped along by his memoir-writing and by frequent doses of "Noone at Night."

Touched by Pete's devotion to his stories, as well as the boy's obvious need for a father figure, Gabriel finds himself drawn into an intense relationship with his young fan, involving long, late-night phone calls that begin to worry Gabriel's friends. And, other than their mutual need, how much does he really know about Pete, anyway? As Gabriel begins to question his own motives, as well as those of the boy, The Night Listener transforms itself from an absorbing but quotidian story of loss and midlife angst into a dark and suspenseful page-turner with a playful metaphysical aspect and an un-Dickensian sexual candor. --Regina Marler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

The lines between reality and illusion are intriguingly blurred in this novel from the author of the Tales of the City series. Maupin also takes on various questions about how art imitates life, since there are many similarities here between author and protagonist. The deceptively simple story line concerns Gabriel Noone, a San Francisco radio personality whose "grabby little armchair yarns" have developed a cult following; indeed, the books based on these weekly NPR broadcasts "have never stopped selling." But Gabriel is experiencing severe writer's block as he endures an emotional crisis triggered by the decision of Jess, his longtime male companion, to separate: "I lost a vital engine I never even knew I had." When a manuscript sent to Gabriel for an endorsement turns out to be a harrowing memoir of sexual abuse written by a 13-year-old, he is moved to contact the precocious youngster. It seems that Gabriel has been an on-the-air lifeline for Peter Lomax, who has been adopted by a female doctor with some pressing problems of her own. This vulnerable threesome embark on a pas de trois that envelops the reader in an increasingly absorbing puzzle. Providing a moving counterpoint to Gabriel's growing attachment toAeven dependence onAPete is his inability to cope with his estrangement from Jess. As in his earlier works, reading Maupin's prose is like meeting up with a beloved old friend; it's an easy, uncomplicated encounter filled with warmth, wisdom and familiar touches of humor. But there's pathos here as well, and sharp-edged drama with a few hairpin turns. As Gabriel cautions, "I'm a fabulist by trade, so be forewarned: I've spent years looting my life for fiction." And what splendid booty GabrielAand MaupinAhave compiled for readers' enjoyment. 100,000 first printing; 16-city author tour. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 342 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (September 18, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006093090X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060930905
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (144 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #654,791 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, Wonderful, Wonderful, September 14, 2000

By 

Scott E. Lopriore "scottlop" (Chicopee, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Night Listener: A Novel (Hardcover)

I was so excited to hear the Armistad Maupin was coming out with another book. After reading and hearing about it, I decided to pick up a 3-part gally of his book at a bookstore I work for. Seriously, this only took me one sitting. The story surrounds a NPR radio host, Grabriel Noone, who was going through writer's block. In addition to his difficulty in writing, his boyfriend left him. After reading a gally written by a 12-year-old boy, who is a fan of Gabriel's funny and lyrical radio show, Gabriel contacts the ill-fated boy, named Pete, and becomes friends with him. As their friendship progresses, Gabriel starts telling Pete his problems and hardships in his life. Pete listens and gives advice to Gabriel, which helps him. BUT, the question is: DOES this boy exist? Is Pete an actual person? With many people doubting Pete's extistence, Gabriel goes out to find pete, and prove he exists. This is a FANTASTIC piece of work from Armistad Maupin. Gabriel goes through a journey of life, in dealing with his ex-boyfriend, his family (particuarly his father), and himself. THE NIGHT LISTENER is a triumph, with a climax that will make you think and wonder for days. This is one book you will have a hard time putting down, let alone wishing it never ended.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I speaks to universal themes, in an unusual package, October 11, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Night Listener: A Novel (Hardcover)

This book was startlingly good. Not that I would ever think that Armistead Maupin could write a book I wouldn't like (he could write a book about paint drying and it would be interesting in some way), but I was wondering if I'd find the story as interesting as the TOTC series.

After reading a couple of chapters, thinking I'd finish it upon returning home, I was hooked. Before I knew it I had read 1/2 the book. I finished it the next night. When I was done, I was in shock. I have read many books, but NONE have ever made me feel the emotions I felt reading this book. No book ever made me actually cry, and for an extended period of time too.

People should read this book even if they think its subject matter (gay relationships, child abuse, famous authors, etc.) would not appeal to them.

I'm not gay, I don't know anyone who has been abused like Pete Lomax was as a child, and I am not a published author, and yet I found this book and the emotions and feelings it described were universal themes relevant to my own life and things I was going through at the time I bought the book and previously. It was a very moving experience .

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fiction within Fiction!!!, November 15, 2000

By 

Joseph J. Hanssen "Joe" (Upstate New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Night Listener: A Novel (Hardcover)

Maupin is such an expert at blurring the lines between the truth and fiction. Can this be based on his own life, or is it just more fiction and not really fact? We really don't know when we are done reading this book, but what a wonderful experience it is. Maupin's books are always full of surprises, and this one is no exception. If you want closure when you read this book, you are going to be disappointed. However, that can be good because when you're done reading this book, you're going to be really thinking and wondering for a long time about the details of this story, and that's the sign of a great book that you're not going to forget. There is nothing predictable here, and I promise you that you won't be able to put the book down till you're finished. I didn't. It's a very touching story, full of emotion, and lots of love. Gabriel Noone's emotional relationship in helping an ailing thirteen year old boy, Pete Lomax, who has suffered terrible abuse by the hands of his parents, is a very moving story.

Armistead Maupin is one of the best authors we have today. I always look forward to his next book. Now I just want to know when the movie will be released!!!